How excited would you be if the 10th overall pick for the Broncos is...Drew Lock?

Good morning, Broncos Country!

Missouri quarterback Drew Lock had an official visit with the Broncos earlier this week and many mocksters (aka, “experts”) are still predicting that he will be the 10th overall pick for Denver in the first round of the upcoming NFL Draft.

And when the Broncos were on the board for the SBNation Mock Draft this week, Scotty Payne chose Lock as Denver’s pick:

Elway’s love for Lock is well documented. Elway and then right-hand man Gary Kubiak scouted Lock during the season, and Elway told anyone who was listening about how much he loved Lock at the Senior Bowl. They hosted Lock at the Broncos’ practice facility for a top-30 pre-draft visit Monday. It just makes too much sense not to happen.

Yes, the Broncos acquired quarterback Joe Flacco in a trade this offseason, but he simply just replaced Case Keenum as the placeholder for the position. Add in Flacco’s lack of any guaranteed money in his deal going forward and you have an easy transition to go from Flacco to Lock in a year or two.

Lock needs some development, but they did hire former 49ers quarterbacks coach Rich Scangarello to be the team’s offensive coordinator. He made a name for himself in San Francisco by developing Nick Mullens into a capable starting quarterback. So the Broncos will be hoping Scangarello can work the same magic on a more talented Lock.

Elway likely has one last chance at drafting his quarterback of the future for the Broncos, and he’s going to go all-in on Lock, for better or for worse.

To be fair, on the SBNation mock, several favorites of the Broncos were already off the board, including Ed Oliver, Devin White and T.J. Hockenson.

So Jess, Tim and I discussed the Lock choice on our recent Something Something Broncos podcast - and basically came up with...

Meh.

It’s not that the pick doesn’t make sense. It does.

It’s not that the Broncos don’t need to be thinking of their QBOTF. They do.

It’s just that unless you’re really sold on Drew Lock outside of those variables, it’s hard to be excited about the pick.

In our discussion, we all noted the need and all voiced our support for the move if (when) it happens.

But none of us was too thrilled with it for several reasons:

Joe Flacco

I know, I know. NOT the QBOTF.

But he is QBO2019, so let’s focus on that and use the draft for a myriad of other needs, especially since many of those include positions with a deep class in this draft.

Positions like tight end, linebacker, interior defensive line, wide receiver.

Let Fangio be Fangio

The new head coach is known for his defenses, so why not rely on Flacco this year without distraction and let Fangio form a team around his coaching strength - the defense.

John Elway arguably already bolstered the defense with his free agent pickups in Bryce Callahan and Kareem Jackson, but adding more defensive weapons - especially a middle linebacker - is always a good thing and would go a long way in helping Fangio make it a defense versatile and aggressive enough to play to his scheme.

The Paxton Factor

I will fully admit that some of my hesitation over picking Drew Lock stems from the disaster known as the Paxton Experiment.

I was in favor of that pick at the time and excited about having Paxton a Bronco (until I saw him do that goofy dab dance in pants that were way too short) - and it’s hard to know where all the faults lie in that debacle - but I’m not in a hurry to pick another first-round QB that we know is “raw” and needs development.

We do have a new set of coaches, and presumably Rich Scangarello could really help a young QB get up to speed, but he’s also going to have his hands full running the entire offense now, not just working with a couple of guys at one position.

So call me a wuss, but I’m just not excited about taking a chance on a project for our first-round pick. I would be more likely to advocate for it if the potential choice were going to be Dwayne Haskins, but given scheme fit, that’s probably not a good match for the Broncos anyway, so I’m over it already.

Thankfully, only a few more weeks of speculation before we can start picking apart (er, analyzing) the Broncos’ actual first-round pick.

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