The Broncos want to be taken seriously as a legit NFL playoff contender. They want to be heard in the national conversation other than the 60 seconds when our old buddy Peyton Manning is doing a TV commercial. Young quarterback Drew Lock wants us to hop on this orange-and-blue bus because he insists: “I truly feel like we’re an extremely good team.”
Sorry, I ain’t buying it. Not yet.
While we all love Lock’s swagger, I won’t believe his Broncos are for real until they do one big thing:
Beat the Chiefs.
Until Denver can end its nine-game losing streak against Kansas City, a playoff berth and national relevance will remain out of the Broncos’ reach. For as long as Lock plays football, beating the Chiefs will mean more because he was born and raised in Missouri.
“It is cool to be able to kind of put the Darth Vader mask on and steer away from the Jedi and come to the dark side, so to say,” Lock said Wednesday. “I kind of like playing that guy. Hopefully I can be that guy and get a win this Sunday and start the rivalry a little bit.”
Lock wants to play the villain against a team he grew up cheering. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. But before Lock can sign his name to a signature win, the 23-year old quarterback from the Show-Me State needs to come up big against Kansas City.
Beat the Chiefs?
It has to happen again sometime before we leave this good Earth. Doesn’t it? Beating the Chiefs is not rocket science. I mean, if a bunch of smart people from Colorado can figure out how to land a spacecraft on an asteroid, how hard could it be for Denver to figure out a way to thwart K.C and coach Andy Reid?
“He’s got such a Star Wars offense over there, lot of weapons,” Broncos coach Vic Fangio said.
OK, maybe stopping the Chiefs is rocket science. If this is Star Wars, can Darth Vader ever win?
During the Broncos’ most recent victory in this series, back in September 2015, cornerback Bradley Roby returned a fumble for the winning touchdown and Manning improved his record to 14-1 against the Chiefs, prompting some knucklehead sports columnist to write: “Maybe Kansas City should quit playing football.”
So blame me. The Chiefs have won nine consecutive times since those ill-advised words. And most of the games haven’t been close, with Kansas City’s average margin of victory a dominating 22 points.
At the end of last season, with the Broncos feeling newfound swagger that arrived with Lock in the starting lineup, Denver went to Kansas City with receiver Courtland Sutton vowing to: “Hit ’em in the mouth. Let ’em know that next season, y’all boys are in it, for sure.”
Well, Sutton and his teammates got barbecued 23-3 on that wintry December afternoon in K.C. Next season is here. The Broncos don’t have Sutton, lost for the season with a knee injury. Do they have any realistic hope of beating the Chiefs?
“This is a tough task for us, without a doubt,” Lock said.
Fair or not, it’s primarily on Lock’s shoulders to return the Broncos to relevancy because any discussion of playoff contention starts with the quarterback.
Want to take a look at the current quarterback ratings in the AFC West? Can you handle the truth?
Derek Carr: 115.9
Mahomes: 110.1.
Justin Herbert: 107.1
Lock: 66.9
When the gap between Lock and his division rivals is that huge, it’s hard to blame it all on the butter fingers of Broncos receiver DaeSean Hamilton. Has Lock’s grade suffered from some bad luck? Yes. But the buck stops at the quarterback for a team with red-zone issues.
It’s too early to conclusively judge a quarterback that has only just begun his climb on the NFL’s often-harsh learning curve. Throw out his brief appearance last month in Pittsburgh, when Lock departed with a shoulder injury, and he has played only seven full games for the Broncos.
In those seven assignments, Lock has thrown eight touchdown passes and averaged 203.6 passing yards. That’s not bad. But the quietly pedestrian stats of a game manager don’t match up with the bold gunslinger image Lock tries to project. The Broncos will need him to do more if they are going to break a losing streak Lock is reminded about so often he’s sick of hearing it.
“It would be nice to maybe be able to snap that streak,” Lock said.
No Broncos talk of making the playoffs can be taken seriously until they deliver on three big words:
Beat the Chiefs
