Has Drew Lock’s draft stock received a boost because of these young NFL quarterbacks?
After Missouri’s upset win over No. 13 Florida on Nov. 3, Drew Lock had a moment to himself in the locker room. As he sat on the bench in the visiting locker room of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, he processed the last week in his mind. The previous Saturday, Missouri’s offense went the entire second half without a first down in a heartbreaking loss to Kentucky.
A week later, the win over the Gators gave him a signature victory after years of critics pointing out all of the times he had failed to deliver one. He torched the Gators secondary for 250 yards and three touchdowns in his best game at MU.
The game settled Lock’s legacy at MU, but he wondered if it would mean anything to NFL teams in the long run.
He watched the Chiefs-Rams Monday Night Football game a few weeks later, the one quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Jared Goff authored into an instant classic. Mahomes and Goff went 0-17 against ranked teams in college, but they combined for 10 total touchdowns and 891 yards in the NFL’s most-anticipated regular season game between a pair of 9-1 teams.
Lock watched as the greatest knock on him as a draft prospect — his failure to beat high-level opponents in college — lost luster with each pass.
“People that can actually watch film aren’t looking at stats and records and all that nonsense,” Lock said. “Go and look at what kind of quarterback the man is. How fluent his passing skills are, how much he can react on the field, how athletic he is. That has nothing to do with how many teams you beat that are in the top-25.”
Lock, who was named a finalist for the Manning Award on Thursday, ended the regular season on a four-game winning streak where he accounted for 12 touchdowns (three rushing) for 981 passing yards and just two interceptions. He completed 69 percent of his throws. His season statistics don’t jump off the page like they did a year ago, but his 63.1 percent completion percentage was a career-high.
He knew those numbers were going to take a step down as Missouri moved away from Josh Heupel’s air-raid spread offense to Derek Dooley’s more balanced spread offense.
Lock’s performance in a bowl game won’t really change his draft stock, but Lock’s recent play appears to have done him some favors in the eyes of NFL scouts.
“The mental processing came along a bit,” said Jon Ledyard, a draft analyst for Draft Network LLC. “Better body language, the Florida game that was a good performance. I think he did a lot of really good things. He throws the ball downfield as good as he has at any point in his career.”
Dane Brugler, an NFL Draft analyst for The Athletic, said Lock can do himself some favors at the Senior Bowl, which he’s reportedly been invited to, but the idea of Mahomes and Goff helping his resume is more of an interesting debate.
NFL teams know college teams and their respective personnel and schemes, which gave Mahomes a cop-out coming from Texas Tech. The Red Raiders are known for their air-raid offense and the video-game numbers that come with it, but the Chiefs also considered Texas Tech’s porous defense when looking at Mahomes’ record against ranked teams.
“(Former Texas Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury) explained to me his situation there, and I came out of there not worried about that,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “I guess what I’m saying is every situation is probably different. After looking at that, we felt comfortable enough to go up and get him with the things that we heard and saw.”
The same goes for Lock and Missouri. Ledyard said that given the rebuild MU has gone through during Lock’s career, some of the games Lock played against ranked teams won’t matter as much as others in the eyes of NFL evaluators.
Missouri played Alabama and Georgia (ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, nationally at the time) without Emanuel Hall, its top receiver, and Lock played his first conference road game under Barry Odom at LSU as a sophomore.
“Even though Missouri improved a lot this season, no one is expecting Drew Lock to beat Alabama, and I don’t know if anyone is expecting him to beat Georgia, especially when you see the lack of support he got in that game,” Ledyard said. “It wasn’t realistic to ask him to win these kinds of games.”
Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz, who played at North Dakota State, and Steelers’ star Ben Roethlisberger, who attended Miami of Ohio, provide precedent of successful signal-callers who rarely even faced ranked teams, let alone beating them. Even Hall of Famer and Broncos general manager John Elway, who scouted Lock on Friday in the Tigers’ shellacking of Arkansas, finished with a 20-23 career record at Stanford and never played in a bowl game.
Where Wentz and Mahomes enhanced their stocks was in the interview process where teams question players about their knowledge of the game and ask them to draw plays on the whiteboard, Brugler said. Lock, after playing for three offensive coordinators at MU, has the ability to enhance his stock at the Senior Bowl and NFL Combine if his IQ impresses the NFL teams.
“The Senior Bowl is going to be crucial to his development,” Brugler said. “It’s a chance for him to work with NFL coaches and a chance for teams to understand where he’s at in his mental development, and it’s the last chance we’re going to see him in a football setting in pads. It would be a big benefit to teams. And I think he’s going to impress.”
Scouts have knocked Lock in the past for his overconfidence in his arm, which has led to poor decision-making, and at times, back-breaking turnovers. It’s an area Ledyard said Lock has improved in over the course of the year. More often this season than in past ones, Lock displayed a willingness to throw the ball away. He’s improved in the short passing game, too — as shown by the rise in completion percentage — even though Missouri’s offenses under Heupel and John Henson rarely used short and intermediate routes.
Lock needs to be able to show the ability to make good throws when forced out of the pocket, which he’s struggled with throughout his career.
“You didn’t see the bouts of erratic accuracy that you’d seen in the past,” Ledyard said. “When things are clean in the pocket, he’s a fairly accurate quarterback. He needs to be able to put the ball in the perfect spot for his teammates. He dealt with so many drops in the games, (if) you think about what the adjusted completion percentage looks like, it’s probably better.”
There are undoubtedly concerns that some of Lock’s numbers are down, which he understands, but counters with the improved completion percentage and Missouri’s ability to stay in games as signs that he’s made strides from last season. Most mock drafts currently project Lock as a first-round pick, but where he goes depends largely on whether underclassmen quarterbacks Justin Herbert (Oregon) and Dwayne Haskins (Ohio State) declare for the draft. Herbert is considered the top quarterback in the class if he declares, and Haskins’ stock is rising after a strong performance against Michigan on Saturday.
Lock admits that even though the Florida win helps to quiet critics, individual games won’t decide how soon he hears his name called in April.
“That’s in the back of my head,” Lock said. “And I think the people that really know football, that’s in the back of their head, too.”
Alex Schiffer
Alex Schiffer covers University of Missouri athletics for The Star.
This story was originally published November 29, 2018 at 7:52 PM.