ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — There is a proverb about patience, that it “attracts happiness.”
Then there is football patience as longtime NFL coach Ron Erhardt once described it: “I’ll have patience when they hurry up and play better.”
And then there’s Buffalo Bills‘ Josh Allen — the living, breathing, 6-foot-5, 237-pound example of quarterback patience in the NFL. Allen, who is having by far the best season in his three-year career, goes to work against the Denver Broncos on Saturday at Empower Field at Mile High (4:30 p.m. ET, NFL Network). His example should give Broncos fans plenty of football food for thought.
Because the Broncos might have, in quarterback Drew Lock, exactly what Allen was two years ago.
“We live in a world where everyone wants everything really fast, everyone wants it right now, and we get that with our phones,” Lock said. “You want to click on an app, it’s going to pop up instantly. It’s the same thing in football. You want greatness really, really fast. I want it. Trust me, I want to be great as bad as the people at home watching the game want me to be great. I want it more than they want it. It’s about me finding ways throughout the week to just keep getting better. It’s going to happen, and it’s slowly happening.”
Lock will make his 16th career start Saturday against the Bills, or one full season’s worth of games. Even with his best game of the season — 280 passing yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions against the Carolina Panthers — as his most recent effort, Lock is last in the league in completion percentage (57.3, a sliver of a percentage behind the now-benched Carson Wentz), second to last in interceptions and ahead of Wentz and the Jets’ Sam Darnold in passer rating.
That’s just about where Allen was in 2018 and 2019 — last in the league in completion percentage as well as touchdown passes as a rookie in 2018 and last in the league in completion percentage in 2019, with plenty of what-he-can’t-do conversation swirling around him.
This year, his 10-3 Bills are a win away from their first division title since Tom Brady was a true freshman at Michigan. Allen’s name sits among QB royalty — Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes, Drew Brees and Russell Wilson — in almost every statistical category.
“He’s having a hell of a season,” Broncos coach Vic Fangio said. “He’s a big, strong guy who can run. He’s tough to tackle in the pocket, and he’s tough to tackle when he breaks out of the pocket. They have some designed runs for him. He’s seeing the field very well and throwing it very well. The guy has really emerged as one of the top quarterbacks in the league.”
Allen’s own work ethic — he has continued to tweak his throwing motion to be more accurate, especially with how he sets his lower body — is the starting point to his success, but it doesn’t hurt having head coach Sean McDermott and offensive coordinator Brian Daboll in place for each of Allen’s three seasons.
Lock’s own desire to work will be at the foundation of what happens next. It’s worth noting, though, that Broncos offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur is the team’s fifth different playcaller in the past five seasons, Mike Shula is the fifth quarterbacks coach in the past five seasons and Fangio is the third head coach in the past five seasons. Dial it all back to Lock’s time at Missouri and he has had a different offensive coordinator in six of the past seven years.
The Broncos have also not started the same 11 players on offense in back-to-back games this season. That includes Lock missing two games with a shoulder injury and another game for violating COVID-19 protocols.
“[Change] would have definitely made it more difficult,” Allen said. “Having the same verbiage and concepts and the relationships I do with Daboll has been extremely helpful. Scheme-wise, knowing my protections, knowing the concepts that I like and Daboll understanding the concepts I don’t like. If we had to switch it up, it’d be tough. Nobody likes to be thrown in a new system, especially if you feel comfortable with the one you’re in now.”
“I feel like it’s patience with [Allen],” Lock said. “Obviously, he struggled a little bit when he got into the league as far as completion percentage goes, but he figured it out. He learned, kept growing, kept realizing what looks he wanted for certain plays, and now he has the experience. He’s played in it, he’s struggled in it, and when you struggle in it, you end up learning, you end up thriving. That’s why he’s playing extremely good ball right now. It’s football that I want to end up eventually getting to and playing like.”
The Broncos went all-in on Lock this past offseason and have constructed one of the youngest groups of skill players in the league. They have two 21-year-old wide receivers — Jerry Jeudy and KJ Hamler — and have had three consecutive impactful draft classes. Wide receiver Courtland Sutton is expected to return from a torn ACL in 2021. Lock’s future is the biggest offensive decision the team faces in the weeks to come.
Lock has three games, including Saturday’s, to show some improved decision-making, exhibit his willingness to grind, and potentially help the Broncos grab another win or two. Three games to give a glimpse that he’s getting the message. Three games to prove a patient approach — the one Allen got — is worth it.
“I understood my strengths and weaknesses and feel like I still understand what my strengths and weaknesses are,” Allen said. “Self-knowledge is a huge tool in the maturation process and how to be patient with yourself. It was my goal to find out how to be the best quarterback and the best teammate I could be for the Buffalo Bills.
“We’re sitting at 10-3 and it feels good to be in the position that we’re at, but we understand that the job is not finished.”