For the time being, the guys vying to be the starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos in 2020 are Drew Lock and Teddy Bridgewater.
There are many trains of thought when looking at who could win the competition. Some believe that Lock should get one more chance to show he can be the guy while others see Bridgewater as the much safer option, an option that Vic Fangio may be inclined to go to given his tenuous status as the team’s head coach.
All indications point to a legitimate 50-50 competition between Lock and Bridgewater and due to his experience in the league, the former first-round pick Bridgewater may have the inside track to win the job.
Of course, many fans are still holding onto hope that George Paton can swing a trade to bring in either Aaron Rodgers or Deshaun Watson.
Experience is just one of the advantages that Bridgewater has over Lock, but just looking at last season, where did each guy rank in key statistical categories. That is what we will be looking at here.
Bridgewater played in 15 games for the Carolina Panthers, his lone season with the team. Lock did miss some games with injuries last season, forcing the Broncos to turn to both Jeff Driskel and Brett Rypien.
Let’s take a look at how the 2020 season went for each quarterback.
Completion percentage
Teddy Bridgewater: 69.1 (league rank- 6th)
Drew Lock: 57.3 (league rank- 43rd)
This is a category with a huge discrepancy and could be one of the reasons some fans are favoring Bridgewater in the competition already.
If the Broncos want to employ an offensive strategy that looks to take advantage of the short, quick passing game, Bridgewater could thrive. He did that with the Panthers last year, where only five quarterbacks completed a higher percentage of their throws.
When those players include Josh Allen, Watson, Rodgers, and Drew Brees, that’s saying something.
Bridgewater had a very underrated season throwing the ball in Carolina and he is one of those quarterbacks who will take what a defense gives him. Having the chance to get the ball to guys like Courtland Sutton, Jerry Jeudy, and K.J. Hamler, he could have his best year in the league.
For Lock, his low completion percentage is a concern.
There were only six quarterbacks with a lower percentage last season and all of them were backups, including Driskel. This is a number that Lock must bring way up, because if there is a difference between completed passes at this rate in training camp and preseason games, Bridgewater could win the job on that alone.
Touchdown passes
Drew Lock: 16 (league rank- Tie for 20th)
Teddy Bridgewater: 15 (24th)
Lock sustained a shoulder injury in Week 2 against the Pittsburgh Steelers last season and would go on to miss three games. As a result, he threw just 16 touchdown passes in what was 12 games and parts of one other.
Bridgewater doesn’t really have that excuse as he played in 15 games and threw just 15 touchdown passes. If there was a knock on his time in Carolina last year, it was that he didn’t get his team into the end zone enough.
He averaged just one touchdown pass per game and that is just not going to cut it against the Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert’s of the division.
It remains to be seen if Lock can be a 30 or 40-touchdown pass guy in one season, but Bridgewater is pretty clearly not going to be that guy. In fact, those 15 touchdown passes were actually the most he has thrown in one season.
So while the Broncos may be getting an accurate thrower in Bridgewater, he is not the kind of gunslinger that a team may need to keep up with the high-octane offenses in the AFC West.
Of course, if Fangio plans to win games the way he helped the 2018 Chicago Bears win games, with great defense, then Bridgewater might be ideal in that situation as well.
Interceptions and fumbles
Drew Lock: 18
Teddy Bridgewater: 14
Both of these guys turned the ball over too much last season and that was a contributing factor as to why their teams missed the playoffs. But Broncos fans are far more familiar with the turnovers that Lock made.
Lock threw 15 interceptions, tied with Carson Wentz for the most in the league. The worst part is that many of those picks came on some mind-numbingly bad throws. Lock is a lot like Jay Cutler in a lot of ways and is too confident in his arm talent, feeling he can make every single throw.
His tendency to throw off of his back foot led to some negative plays for the team. He also lost three fumbles, for a total of 18 turnovers,
Bridgewater threw 11 picks and also lost three fumbles.
Neither of these teams was talented enough to overcome a high number of turnovers last season and protecting the ball needs to be of utmost importance going into this competition, but specifically for Lock.
Let’s be honest, the Broncos have much more invested in Lock than they do Bridgewater and the organization wants him to win this job. Truthfully, Broncos Country should be rooting for that outcome as well.
But turning the ball over as much as he did last year is something that will bury Lock’s chances of making that happen.
Who wins the competition?
Though these stats are from last season and are just a microcosm of what we could see heading into this season, it seems the Broncos should know what they have here.
Bridgewater is an efficient thrower who could slowly carve up a defense with a short passing attack. However, he’s not really going to do anything to wow an opponent and he’s not going to throw it around the yard the way Mahomes and Herbert can do.
On the other hand, Lock is capable of doing that but we have yet to see it enough and it’s fair to question how many mistakes he is going to make in the process.
It should make for an interesting quarterback competition. Of course, convincing the Green Bay Packers to send over Rodgers would make it all a moot point.