Drew Lock gets blasted by talking heads for mask negligence.
The Denver Broncos got themselves into a rather sticky situation over the weekend with all four quarterbacks being declared ineligible for a home game against the NFC’s top-seeded New Orleans Saints.
The investigation into the Broncos’ mask-wearing around the facility was obviously not overly thorough as it happened so swiftly, but the Broncos were without Drew Lock and all of their other quarterbacks and were forced to call up former Wake Forest QB turned wide receiver Kendall Hinton from the practice squad into the gameday lineup.
After the Broncos predictably got destroyed by one of the best defenses in the NFL 31-3, Vic Fangio was clear that he is disappointed in a position group that is supposed to be leaders on the team.
Fangio made it clear: Fault for today’s fiasco lies with QBs. #9sports
— Mike Klis (@mikeklis) November 30, 2020
After calling out his quarterback room for the “fiasco” and farce that was Sunday’s game against the Saints, the talking heads have been out in full force, condemning the Broncos’ quarterbacks for not following the rules to the letter.
Missed opportunities are expensive @getupespn pic.twitter.com/JzlrF9b3lg
— Dan Orlovsky (@danorlovsky7) November 30, 2020
Is that a fair assessment from Orlovsky? Of course, you want all of your players doing everything they can in order to make sure a worst-case-scenario like this does not happen at any time.
Drew Lock himself admitted he made an error and lapse in judgment for a brief moment.
The Broncos sent footage of the event in question to the NFL with more than 24 hours to review, but the league took longer to review than was probably necessary and had the Broncos pull all of their quarterbacks from the field mid-practice on Saturday.
Broncos sent video of QB meeting in question to league on Friday morning. League didn’t notify Broncos to pull Lock/Rypien/Bortles til 12:45 pm Saturday. More than 24 hours to review. With more notice Broncos could have, you know, given Kendall Hinton another rep or 2. #9sports https://t.co/OoRJNqWbZY
— Mike Klis (@mikeklis) November 29, 2020
The Broncos and now Drew Lock specifically have faced a ton of criticism in recent days for breaking COVID protocols, and while not every situation is created equally, they are the only team to suffer such a devastating on-field consequence because of broken COVID protocol.
Many feel like the Broncos made that bed, so they need to lie in it. That’s the way the NFL treated it even though it has flexed a number of other games with teams dealing with contact tracing and positive tests. That would include the Broncos having their bye week erased earlier in the season to accommodate the New England Patriots.
Other teams and players around the league have gotten fined for breaking mask-wearing protocols, but it’s fascinating that players with negative tests can mingle at midfield after the game with no consequence, or like we saw in the Buccaneers and Chiefs game, Tom Brady and Chris Jones went at it verbally and got in each other’s faces without anyone batting an eye.
Why? Because they had negative tests.
On Monday, the Broncos’ quarterbacks tests once again all came back negative so why did the NFL not at the very least push this game to Monday night?
According to even more talking heads, the NFL isn’t moving games for competitive disadvantages. It’s moving games for safety and health purposes only, but isn’t that why Lock, Rypien, Bortles, and Driskel were all ruled ineligible in the first place? Health and safety?
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