New Broncos offensive coordinator makes surprising statement on Drew Lock

Less than a month into his job as the Denver Broncos’ new offensive coordinator, Justin Outten has given some initial thoughts on former starting quarterback Drew Lock as spring training draws nearer.

“He’s got a powerful arm, he’s done a really good job as far as using his legs as far as being an athlete … I want to see how he fits in this system a little more when he gets the playbook under him and we’ll go from there,” Outten said.

After earning the starting stripes during the 2020-21 season in his second year out of Missouri, Lock led the Broncos to a 5-11 season and fourth place in the AFC West for the first time since 2017. There was quite a bit of hype for the strong-armed quarterback around the Broncos fanbase after starting the final five games of his rookie year, going 4-1 in that span. The only loss he had was the starter during his rookie campaign came against the Chiefs on the road — which is a hard game to win for any quarterback, let alone a rookie.

He finished 2020 starting 13 of Denver’s 16 games while completing 254 of his 443 passes (57.3 percent) for 2,933 yards, 16 touchdowns and 15 interceptions.

In came Teddy Bridgewater from the Carolina Panthers to take his place last season. Thanks to a multitude of injuries, however, Lock was still able to make six starts for the Broncos, but only threw for 787 yards, 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions in those opportunities. Compare that to his 1,020 yards passing, 7 touchdowns and 3 interceptions during his hot streak as a rookie — the numbers are dwindling fast for Lock, and Outten sees that.

Broncos president and legendary quarterback John Elway has always thought highly of Lock’s play and is especially smitten with his arm strength, going on record as saying, “We still like what we see in him,” back at the end of 2020.

“He’s gone through his reads better and dumped some things off and continued to use the experience to get better,” Elway told the team’s official website. “Obviously, the inconsistency, that comes with being young, especially if you’re young and you’ve got young guys around you … like we do. It seems like when they all don’t play well, they do it together. Again, we’ve just got to work on the consistency. And I think that Drew’s had an up-and-down year, but we still like what we see in him and still think that he’s got a chance to be a very good quarterback in this league.”

With Outten in as the new OC in Denver, he’s likely ready to make changes to the struggling roller coaster that has plagued the Broncos’ offense ever since Peyton Manning retired after leading the team to a Super Bowl championship in 2014-15.