Drew Lock - 2019 NFL Draft Scouting Report

Missouri's Drew Lock is a guy who I saw some good things of during the season and has seemed to improve his stock through the Senior Bowl and NFL Combine to firmly place himself as a first round option. Still, anytime a guy's stock gets higher after he is done playing football, I start to get real suspicious. So, I took a look at his games against Georgia, Florida, and Oklahoma State to get a better idea of the former Tiger.

First off, I was very impressed with Lock's pocket presence. I'm not sure if he took a single sack in the three games I watched as he was very confident moving around in traffic. This was my favorite example of that skill.

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Here, he not only steps up because of the defensive end trying to turn the corner, but he steps right past the delayed linebacker blitz and then fires a strike for a touchdown.

Drew Lock also excels throwing on the move.

He was a pretty good high school basketball player, and you can see that in his play. He's very good while in motion, and even though he isn't the most athletic quarterback, he is pretty smooth in all of his actions, and it allows him to remain accurate while in less than ideal conditions.

He can also slang that deep ball.

Here, he begins looking to his right, but then scans over to his left and realizes that even though it is double coverage, the safety does not have a good angle on the play and fires up a nice ball that his receiver comes down with.

He does seem to be fairly smooth in going through progressions.

This is an easier example to see him scanning the field, as he is clearly looking to his left, and the deep safety (31) starts to move in that direction before he moves onto the crossing route where his receiver has plenty of room to make the catch and gain yards.

Something that shows up on the play above as well as this next play is that Lock isn't quite accurate enough.

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It's not a bad throw, but it's not a good enough throw as it's slightly behind the receiver, and this time it causes an incompletion.

Finally, I want to point out the most concerning thing about Lock, and that is that he is not a nice person. This doesn't make you cool, Drew Lock.

It's like he's auditioning for Jackass. And he did this to his receivers repeatedly. This is not cool at all.

I'm half joking about Drew Lock pranking his receivers by nearly getting them decapitated, but it is important that a quarterback not lead his receivers into massive hits, and Missouri receivers took some massive hits. It does make me question his vision to understand how defenders are moving.

Drew Lock may be the most frustrating quarterback I have ever evaluated. I would notice that he wasn't doing a good job of leading his receivers, and he would lead a receiver over the middle perfectly for a big gain. I would notice his footwork breaking down, and he would move in the pocket, and clean up everything on the next play. I would think that this guy shrinks up when there is pressure, and he would overcome an oncoming blitzer and make a tough throw. On one hand, he showed me absolutely everything you need to see from a successful quarterback. On the other, he showed me everything that could prevent him from succeeding at the next level. I am back to college, and the Drew Lock is the pretty girl that seems to be all over me one second, but then completely disappears the next. MAKE UP YOUR MIND, PRETTY GIRL DREW LOCK.

In short, the accuracy bothers me enough where I'm steering clear in the first round. He does show flashes, but if I was taking a chance on a quarterback, I'm still jumping on that Tyree Jackson train.

Previous Scouting Reports:
Noah Fant - Iowa Hawkeyes - Tight End
Dwayne Haskins - Ohio State Buckeyes - Quarterback
TJ Hockenson - Iowa Hawkeyes Tight End
Amani Hooker - Iowa Hawkeyes - Safety
Josh Jacobs - Alabama Crimson Tide - Running Back
Tyree Jackson - Buffalo Bulls - Quarterback
Daniel Jones - Duke Blue Devils - Quarterback
Kyler Murray - Oklahoma Sooners - Quarterback
Anthony Nelson - Iowa Hawkeyes - Defensive End

The Most Overrated Quarterback In The 2011 NFL Draft

Blaine Gabbert is the most overrated prospect in the entire NFL Draft.  Somehow 90% of mainstream talent evaluators have blatantly ignored the serious flaws that he has as a quarterback.  What they see is a big, strong kid who runs well and can really spin a football.  Those are all good traits for a quarterback, and I can't deny any of them.

Most evaluators believe that his shining moment came against my beloved Iowa Hawkeyes.  He was 41-57 for 434 yards.  Clearly, those are impressive numbers.  But if you watched the game and tried to evaluate him as a prospect, it was not nearly as impressive as a performance.

The majority of his passes were five-yard outs and crossing patterns where he used his receivers' speed advantage on Iowa's linebackers.  These were very easy pitch-and-catch throws that most high school quarterbacks could make.

He also showed two major flaws in the Iowa game.  He cannot read the field, and he cannot handle pressure.  All of his plays required him to read one side of the field and ideally fire the ball out of there as quickly as possible.  If that is not there, he is slow to look to the other side of the field and his first instinct is to scramble out of the pocket instead of checking out what other receivers he has available.  He also seems to get a bit of tunnel vision when throwing it to his receivers.  Against zone coverage, he will often lead his receivers into tough spots and put them in position to take big hits. 

The other big thing is that he does not handle pressure well.  The second that he feels pressure he tries to sprint at an angle that takes him backwards and towards the sideline.  When he does this, he just focuses on getting away from the defenders and completely loses track of where his receivers are.  If he manages to avoid the rush comfortably enough to look down the field again, he's usually ten yards further back, making a meaningful completion highly unlikely.  And although he has good speed, he is not especially adept at avoiding the rush, as he is not that quick, and he basically has to turn it into a straight sprint away from the defense as opposed to shuffling his feet to buy a little extra time and fire the ball down the field.

His game against Illinois provides great video evidence of what I'm talking about.

When watching Blaine Gabbert, there is one name that keeps coming to my mind.  It's a guy who was put in a very productive offense in college, much like Gabbert had at Missouri.  He put up good, but not great stats compared to other QBs in that system.  The good news is that this quarterback led his team to a Super Bowl.  The bad news is that it's Rex Grossman.

I know that anybody who likes Gabbert as a prospect would have rather had me stab their cat (Missouri Tigers, get it?), but let me explain.  The college comparisons are definitely there, and Rex Grossman was also seen as a first-round talent coming out of college.  Hence, he was drafted 22nd overall.  Most people seem to forget this, but there is such a thing as "Good Rex."  Good Rex did a very good job for the Bears in a lot of games.  But these were the games where his first option in Ron Turner's offense were open.  When that first option was not open, he went into "Fuck it, I'm throwing it deep" mode.

I basically see about the same things happening for Gabbert.  You can't tell me that this doesn't look like something Rex Grossman would do.

If he is an offense where his first look is consistently open, he will look like a pro bowler.  If not, he will have people screaming for Brian Griese to take the starting job.  I'll admit the comparison is a little on the harsh side, so if you want to call Gabbert a rich man's Rex Grossman, I won't argue against that.

While his physical attributes will make some talent evaluators salivate, I wouldn't even think about him until round two.  Could he develop into a great quarterback?  Maybe.  But I don't think it's very likely.  There are too many glaring holes in his game right now.  Calling this guy the next great QB prospect is just plain false and overlooks nearly everything that he's shown in games. 

But there's no need to fret, quarterback needing teams.  Next week, I will reveal the quarterback prospect that I feel is the most underrated in the draft.

-Joe

P.S.  Don't worry, Iowa hating readers, my underrated QB prospect is not Ricky Stanzi.

P.P.S.  In "Troy Tulowitzki is more awesome than you" news, he is allowing fans to pick out his walk-up song for next year after coming out to Party in the USA last year.  Needless to say, I sent in my suggestion of Seal's "Kiss From A Rose."