ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — There was considerable discussion during the Broncos’ news conferences Wednesday that brought promise to keeping on, keeping on.
Vic Fangio, the Broncos’ head coach, delivered encouraging words for Drew Lock as not only the team’s current but also future quarterback as it relates to maintaining cohesion with offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur.
“Yeah, there's no doubt about it that continuity, especially as it relates to a quarterback, can have tremendous positive effect,’’ Fangio said on his Zoom video media conference. “You see it all around the league with a lot of the successful quarterbacks both young and older. I mean, Drew Brees has been with New Orleans for forever it seems, Tom Brady's run at New England, Peyton's run at the Colts. This is (Patrick) Mahomes’ fourth year with the Chiefs.
>Video above: Klis and Tell from Monday, Dec. 14
“You just see it time and time again where the continuity ends up paying off and players develop better—particularly the quarterback—and hopefully we'll be able to get that done with Drew here.”
For that to happen, Lock needs to keep his same coaches for a second consecutive year. He had Rich Scangarello and T.C. McCartney as his offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach last year; Shurmur and Mike Shula this year. Yes, Lock said three days after his career-best 4 touchdown-0 interceptions-149.5 passer rating performance against Carolina that he would like Shurmur and Shula to return.
“Yeah, that'd be awesome,’’ Lock said. “It'll be my first comforting feeling since my sophomore year of college to be able to have Josh Heupel back-to-back years. He's one of the more inspirational guys to me in my football career and it's probably because I ended up having him more than one year in my life.
“It's nice to have somebody that you're familiar with, that you feel like you have continuity with, and that you know he knows you and you know in your heart that you know him as a play caller. You know how they're going to coach. You know what they expect, and it'll just make me feel comfortable. I think it'll make everybody feel comfortable, not only myself. It's obviously important for the quarterback to feel comfortable, but as a quarterback you want everyone else around you to feel comfortable and I feel like having the same play caller in this organization for more than one year would be huge for us.”
Lock will make his 16th career start -- one full season's worth -- Saturday afternoon against the Buffalo Bills at Empower Field at Mile High. He is 8-7 with 3,218 yards, 20 touchdown passes and 16 interceptions for a below-average 79.7 passer rating. But again, there are signs of improvement as he becomes more familiar with his coaches and teammates.
“The past couple games I’m feeling comfortable with my prep and feeling comfortable with the practices I’m putting together,'' Lock said. "It is starting to slow down. I’m starting to see it better and I start to feel better when I go out there. I’m not saying I’m fully there by any means. There’s still a lot of work that I need to do.
"(But) I’m starting to feel better each week going into it. After this week of practice going into Saturday, hopefully we can go out there and the progress continues to make strides with the game slowing down and knowing what to expect after a good week of practice and a good week of prepping.”
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