In two years, the Broncos switched their identity entirely. Their record-setting offense of 2013 was blown out in Super Bowl XLVIII and John Elway quickly worked to create a record-setting defense that would lead them to victory in Super Bowl 50.
That season, the Broncos became a defensive-first team. That year, the Broncos also began to rely heavily on their defense to not only stifle opponents, but also compensate for their lagging offense.
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The approach worked in 2015, but having one unit work in overdrive to compensate for another (or two) is hardly sustainable. It hasn’t worked for the Broncos in the four years since.
But finally, Denver’s defense may have found a reprieve from its double duty. Over the last four weeks with Drew Lock as their quarterback, the Broncos have discovered a renewed hope and, perhaps more importantly, a more balanced identity. A complementary brand of football.
The switch began in Week 13 when Lock took his first start and the Broncos came out of the gate with a pair of passing touchdowns en route to a win.
It happened again in Houston, where Lock threw for 309 yards and the offense put up 38 points.
It happened again Sunday, when the Broncos, coming off a dreadful loss in Kansas City, fell 10 points in the hole by the second quarter against the Lions. The Broncos’ depleted defense gave up 99 net yards in that span while special teams allowed a punt returned for a touchdown. And the offense, well, the offense — like it had so many times in the past — gained only 26 net yards and failed to cross midfield.
But with 10:52 remaining in the first half, Lock took over and soon, so did every other phase for the Broncos.
Lock keyed the first scoring drive while methodically managing the offense to another four straight. Their double-digit deficit turned into a double-digit win by the final whistle. And the defense, accustomed to taking the lead, instead followed the offense’s cue and allowed only 191 net yards in the game, their lowest output of the season.
“Honestly, I feel like this defensive performance really had a lot to do with our offense,” defensive end Shelby Harris said. “The offense was out there holding drives and scoring. If you think about it, most of the yards came from when they scored the first 10 points, and after that, the offense was giving us time to rest, so we just went out there and performed.”
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Added safety Justin Simmons: “There’s just something about him. He has — and I hate saying the same word — he has that swag. He’s a natural leader. Guys want to follow him, and he has that contagious spirit. When we had that drive, on the sidelines as a defense, we get the rest. We come back out juiced up and to see those guys grinding, we want to make it a three and out and get those guys the ball back. It’s great.”
While the sample size is small, The Drew Lock Effect has swept through the Broncos’ locker room (along with a nasty bug) and has so far reinvigorated a team that was dragging. A team that has been stuck in neutral for years while desperately needing to move forward into the post-Peyton Manning era.
The emergence of Lock has not only transformed the balance of the team on the field, but also restored hope to veteran players who had grown frustrated by years of losing, and to fans who were sick of watching the same mistakes and poor play week after week.
The Broncos’ rebuild of sorts started two years too late. But in 2018 and ’19, thanks to a pair of successful draft classes, the Broncos have quickly remade the offense. And Lock might have filled the biggest hole.
They continued to plug other holes by hiring first-year coordinator Rich Scangarello, who was brought on to implement a more dynamic offense — one that resembles Kyle Shanahan’s in San Francisco and incorporates aspects of the college game to fit the skills of their younger players.
The goal: help the Broncos move into the 21st century on offense.
But the pieces at the start of the season didn’t fit the puzzle. So the offense began as a sputtering mess, largely because of the limitations of their 34-year-old quarterback and calls that didn’t seem to fit their personnel.
Now, the Broncos have the third-youngest roster in the NFL with Sunday’s starting offense averaging only 24 years old. The playbook includes more options for a quarterback that can do more with his feet and even more off-schedule with his arm, and features a few tricks. Like, the read-option on fourth-and-1 late in the third quarter, when fullback Andrew Beck took the handoff and pitched a lateral to Phillip Lindsay, who took it 6 yards for a first down.
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Or like the fourth-and-1 in Kansas City, when the Broncos trotted out both Lindsay and Royce Freeman to give the impression they’d run the ball, but instead went play-action and Lock found tight end Noah Fant deep for a 43-yard completion.
“The thing is, he can move out of the pocket and he’s a game-changer,” Lindsay said of Lock. “He can make plays. We’ve got to ride around him and help him out by getting open. All I can say for Drew is, he’s doing a hell of a job and he’s going to only get better.”
In late November, Fangio was asked if it was important for him and the rest of his staff to have Lock play at some point this season, just to see what they had in him. At that point, Lock had been on injured reserve for 10 weeks and had resumed practice with a chance to maybe be activated for the final stretch.
“I don’t think it’s vitally important,” Fangio said that day before thinking back some 30 years to when he was the linebackers coach for the Saints. It was 1987, the year of the strike, and the Saints played a young quarterback named John Fourcade for three games.
New Orleans went 2-1 with him, so when starter Bobby Hebert held out the following season as part of the NFLPA’s class-action antitrust lawsuit against the league over free agency, the Saints felt pretty good about Fourcade. They thought he could be The Guy.
He wasn’t.
“I think with a young guy in limited reps it can be good,” Fangio said in November. “You can get a false positive. You can get a false negative. You need a whole body of work — and that body of work includes offseason and training-camp buildup. I’m not putting any limits on him if he does get in there, but I would be reluctant to make final conclusions.”
Now four games into Lock’s starting tenure, Fangio was reminded of the story he told last month and asked if the feeling with Lock is different from the one the Saints had in 1987.
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“I’m very encouraged by what Drew has done these four games,” Fangio said Monday. “Part of it is too because of the negative. We played a tough game in a tough environment a week ago against a great team, and things didn’t go well. But I liked the way he handled it.”
Lock’s four starts this year may not be an accurate reading of how he’ll play as a full-time starter, and if he’ll lead the Broncos out of their quarterback abyss.
But his introduction has been packed with tests, and he has passed many of them. His first start was against a divisional rival. He won.
His second was on the road against a playoff-bound team with, at the time, a top-10 offense. He won.
His third was a return to his hometown — in a snowstorm, no less, against an offense loaded with talent and a defense much improved from their last meeting. He turned in a stinker.
Start No. 4 was the bounce-back game, where he would either thrive under adversity or cower to the pressure. Although he didn’t post big numbers, he led the Broncos to a comeback victory.
But Fangio believes Lock made the biggest leap when he couldn’t play at all.
“He really used those 10 weeks he was off to his advantage,” Fangio said. “I think he learned more about the NFL, learned more about playing quarterback in the NFL, all the things that go with playing quarterback in the NFL. Whereas I think in training camp he was a little bit inundated with everything, and I think those 10 weeks were really beneficial to him.”
With one game left before the Broncos begin to retool and revamp the roster for 2020, Lock has provided glimpses that he could be the Broncos’ answer going forward. As of now, there’s no sign he wouldn’t be the starter, but things can change in free agency and the draft.
If Lock is The Guy, the Broncos may get to experience an offseason without significant quarterback drama or a coaching change.
If he is The Guy, the Broncos may finally be able to move forward with a more balanced approach.
“He’s done enough to show that he definitely that he could be The Guy,” Fangio said, “and we’re looking for that to be the case.”
(Photo: Dustin Bradford / Getty Images)