tarlhawk wrote:Drew now understands our playbook and all of its "installments" but because of Geno's stellar year and getting Covid last year just when he was to be given a "prove it pre-season game" (Chicago Bears) ...Drew is content to wait as next man up. His "back-up" contract pays him more money than the contract Geno signed and played under last year...not really "chop liver" when John needs every cap dollar he can scrape. I admit speculation and I'm quite comfortable with that. Go Hawks
Lock's contract is for 1 year, $4M. The contract that Geno signed last year was for 1 year, $3.5M. When you take into account that the salary cap increased by 8%, the two contracts are virtually the same and while it's not "chopped liver", it's about what you'd expect for a veteran backup.
Although every game counts, Lock's
"prove it" game in the preseason last year wasn't necessarily the Bears game. He played in two of the three preseason games, did relatively well vs. the Steelers until late in the 4th quarter in a tie game when he missed an obvious blitz which led to a strip sack turnover, setting the Steelers up at midfield and allowed them to go on a game winning drive. I heard a number of people say that this was the same type of problem he had in Denver.
Since he missed the Bears game, Pete gave him more work than he otherwise would have had in our last preseason game vs. the Cowboys, unquestionably Lock's
"prove it" game. He played horribly, going 13-24 for 171 yards with 1 TD and 3 INT's. It was after this game that Pete named Geno the starter for the season opener, pretty much a no brainer after what Lock showed in his two preseason appearances and his well-documented struggles with the Broncos.
It wasn't Covid that robbed Lock of a chance to win the starting job. It would have taken a heck of a performance vs. the Bears to have offset the brain fart vs. the Steelers and the horrid performance vs. the Cowboys for Lock to have beaten out Geno. Even Pete said that Geno had an advantage because he had familiarity with the system and the players, so Lock would have had to have been clearly better than Geno to have won the starting job.
That's why I don't get your fascination with Drew Lock. He was a bust in Denver, essentially a toss in on the RW trade as it was likely that the Broncos were going to cut him anyway. He showed us next to nothing last year as he didn't take a single snap in the regular season. We brought him back this year as a backup QB because he knows our system and our players and we don't need the roster spot for an heir apparent. Sure, he has potential as he's very athletic and has an elephant gun arm, but outside of that, he hasn't given us any indication that he has a future with us beyond that of a backup QB.