RADIO
Dan Palyo examines whether or not Denver Broncos QB Drew Lock is making his receivers relevant in 2020 fantasy football and if Lock is worth adding at quarterback off waivers.
It was halftime in the Denver-Atlanta game last Sunday and the score was Atlanta 20 - Denver 3. I had put my DFS dollars on Drew Lock in what was supposed to be a "too good to possibly mess this up" matchup against the Falcons and was feeling rather queasy about it. Denver had run only 22 offensive plays and Lock was 7-14 passing with 98 yards. Needless to say, things were looking bleak.
But I swear I had seen this movie before. In fact, I had seen it only one week earlier as Lock and the Broncos trailed the Chargers 14-3 at the half, and Lock's halftime line was similar as he was 9-15 for a whopping 58 yards. A good friend of mine who is a Chargers fan texted me "don't worry, the Chargers will find a way to let them back in this game." He was right and sure enough, Lock led the Broncos to a last-second win and finished 26-41 for 248 and three touchdowns.
Back to the Falcons game and Lock saves my butt with another epic second-half performance. Not only does he throw for two scores in the second half, but he runs for 47 yards and a TD, too, finishing with 30 FD points and absolutely smashing value at his price tag. The Broncos came up short in their comeback attempt and lost 34-27, but Lock got me the fantasy points I was after. So is Drew Lock a good quarterback now? Or did he just pile up a bunch of stats late in the game the last two weeks against two teams that are notoriously bad at closing out their opponents?
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Is Lock Improving or Regressing?
The learning curve in the NFL is a steep one. But now with 11 career starts under his belt, shouldn't we be seeing some more consistency from him? When comparing his 2019 stats (5 starts) with his 2020 stats (6 starts) things don't look that much better.
2019: 7 touchdowns, 3 interceptions, 64% completion percentage, 89.7 QB rating
2020: 6 touchdowns, 6 interceptions, 56.5% completion percentage, 73.6% QB rating.
In fact, they look worse by nearly any metric. His completion percentage is the worst of any QB in the NFL (ouch). At first, I thought it could have to do with the extremely young, inexperienced receivers (Jeudy, Hamilton, Fant, Hamler) that Lock has been throwing to all season. But the Broncos are only 15th in the NFL in dropped passes with 9. Are they struggling to get open? Not really, as both Hamler and Fant are top-10 in separation and Jeudy is right around average.
He's clearly missing Courtland Sutton, who has injured in Week 2 against the Steelers and is out for the year. Sutton was a 1000-yard receiver for Denver last year and the team's best deep threat. But even Sutton only had a 58% catch rate last year and Jerry Jeudy's is only 49% this year. Is Lock just missing these guys with bad throws constantly or what?
What could help explain Lock's lack of efficiency is the fact that he is forcing the ball down the field and not relying on short passes to boost his completion percentage. His average intended air yards per attempt is 10, third-highest in the NFL. Meanwhile, his average completed air yards per attempt is only 6, leaving him with a -4 differential (second-highest in the NFL). In simpler terms, he's attempting longer passes than most other quarterbacks in the league and leaving a lot of yards on the field with those incompletions. That could bode well for him if he starts completing more of those passes downfield.
Second-Half Warrior or Garbage-Time Hero?
Lock's first vs. second half splits are extreme and these last two comebacks against the Chargers and Falcons have contributed quite a bit to the disparity in yardage and touchdown numbers.
First half: 48-85 for 561, 1 TD, 1 INT
Second half: 60-106 for 679, 5 TD, 5 INT
Interestingly enough, Lock's QB rating and completion percentage are pretty static across both halves. The volume of passes clearly ticks up in the second half, and that is likely due to how often the Broncos are trailing. Has Lock's second-half production been boosted by softer coverages in the secondary? Possibly, but the only games that they trailed by more than two TDs at any time were the KC and Atlanta games.
I will admit that I haven't watched every Broncos game this season, but my own personal opinion is that Drew Lock is a gamer and while he's inconsistent with his throws, he has shown the ability to bring his team back and keep them in games. If his stats (and thus his receivers' stats, too) are being padded by garbage time, doesn't it matter? Because they skill count the same in our fantasy leagues and DFS lineups as the points scored earlier in the game.
Who are the Broncos on Offense?
I think Denver clearly wanted to be a run-first team this year and they thought bringing in Melvin Gordon III would sure up the running game and create a formidable duo with Philip Lindsay. However, Gordon has been mediocre at best, averaging 4 yards a carry and topping 100 yards in just one game this season. Lindsay has been the more dynamic back, rushing for 5.8 yards a carry and showing some explosiveness with long runs (including a 55-yard TD run against the Chargers).
In 2019, the Broncos run-pass split was 45/55 but through 9 games this season it has swung to a 41/59 split. How much of that has to do with the fact that they've been trailing in most of their games? Probably a good bit of it, but it's clear they have no problem with Lock airing it out. 38% of his attempts have come on first down and he's attempted 40+ passes in three out of six games (keep in mind he left the Steelers game in the first quarter due to a concussion and only attempted five passes as a result).
While they would like to establish the run, they simply haven't been able to do so consistently this year, which means Lock is simply going to have to throw the ball a lot. That 59% pass rate might creep back towards 55% by the end of the year, but not if they keep getting behind in games.
Jerry Jeudy finally had his breakout game against Atlanta with 7-125 and a TD and has now been targeted 24 times in the last two weeks. Noah Fant has 15 targets in the last three weeks. KJ Hamler had 10 targets last week even with Tim Patrick (9 targets of his own) back in the lineup, too. That kind of volume is going to make these receivers interesting, albeit probably inconsistent fantasy assets for the rest of the season.
Rest of Season Outlook
I think it's safe to say the Broncos aren't a good football team. They're extremely young on offense and their defense is pretty much "middle of the road" in most statistical categories. But they are scrappy and have shown the ability to stay in games with their only blowout loss coming to the defending champion Chiefs 43-16 (a tough offense to stop with a solid defense when they can play from in front).
Here's the schedule the rest of the way for Denver with their opponent's passing defense DVOA rating in parentheses.
- Week 10 - Las Vegas Raiders (26)
- Week 11 - Miami Dolphins (8)
- Week 12 - New Orleans Saints (9)
- Week 13 - Kansas City Chiefs (6)
- Week 14 - Carolina Panthers (21)
- Week 15 - Buffalo Bills (15)
- Week 16 - Los Angelas Chargers (14)
- Week 17 - Las Vegas Raiders (26)
It's reasonable to assume that the Broncos are going to underdogs in most of, if not all of these games. There are some tough matchups in there (Miami, KC, NO) but also some exploitable ones (Raiders twice, Chargers again, Carolina) for Lock and the passing game. If Denver continues to struggle to run the ball or falls behind early as they have been, then the opportunity for Lock to pile up stats for himself and his pass-catchers are going to be there as the Broncos will have to continue to resort to pass-heavy gameplans.
I am not sure if I answered the question of "Is Drew Lock good?" or if it even matters all that much. All we really care about is opportunities in fantasy football and I think the chance for Lock to produce usable fantasy outings and elevate guys like Jeudy and Fant is going to be there the rest of the way.
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