Drew Lock needs more like his Seahawks preseason opener to gain Pete Carroll’s trust
As they’ve been in the year-plus he’s been in Seattle, Drew Lock’s words were earnest.
As he has since arriving to the Seahawks, he said all the right things about the man in his way, starter Geno Smith.
And consistent with the three games he’s played for the team, Lock showed flashes of why Seahawks coach Pete Carroll is enticed by his skill. He also made the mistake that he’s known for around the NFL, the kind of pass that got the Denver Broncos to give up on their former rookie starter.
Lock’s two, exquisite plays for touchdown passes, one bad interception and comments after the Seahawks’ 24-13 victory over the Minnesota Vikings in the preseason opener Thursday night at Lumen Field were very much par for his NFL course.
“First game here as a Seahawk in my career. Never walked out there in a Seahawk uniform and played a snap. Had a blast,” said Lock, whose two previous starts for the team were road preseason games last summer, at Pittsburgh and Dallas. “(The) 12s were definitely in effect.”
The former Broncos starter in a notoriously loud stadium a mile high in Denver was impressed he had to go regular-season, silent snap-count mode Thursday at Lumen Field. That was despite the crowd being less than the announced 68,000-plus tickets sold (as part of the team’s regular-season ticket package).
“Silent cadence in a preseason game is hard to get done, from any stadium. That was awesome,” Lock said.
It was his first start, his first playing time, since Lock’s three-turnover night against the Cowboys in Texas last Aug. 26. After that 2022 preseason finale, coach Pete Carroll declared Smith the winner of Seattle’s quarterback competition to replace traded Russell Wilson for last season.
Lock didn’t take a snap last season. Smith took them all, set four team records for passing in a season, made his first playoff start and earned the first Pro Bowl selection of his 10-year career.
This summer, Smith is the clear starter enjoying the perks of his three-year, $105 million contract extension he signed this spring. He wore a baseball cap and watched Lock complete 17 of 24 throws for 191 yards and a passer rating of 104.7 playing the first three quarters of Seattle’s rally from down 10-0 early to win.
“Overall, it felt great,” Lock said. “To be playing football again, gosh, it’s weird when you go a whole year without taking a snap. Props to G for doing that last year, rallying this team, getting us to the playoffs.
“But, man, it felt good to finally be back out there.”
Lock, 26, said he had never gone an entire season at any level of football without taking a snap. The former starter at the University of Missouri drafted in the second round by Denver in 2019 called these three preseason games — he’s likely to enter for Smith in Seattle’s next exhibition Aug. 19 against the Cowboys, when more of Seattle’s regulars play — “extremely valuable.”
“It was interesting, going back out there, feeling the flow of the game again, being the one in charge,” Lock said. “Practice, we do a great job in practice of trying to simulate a game. (But) nothing’s compared to when you really step out there, moving the ball, trying to put points up.
“Man, I’ll take every rep I can get. It was really, really fun tonight.”
What’s next for Drew Lock
Lock was briefly a free agent in March. There was thought he would sign with quarterback-needy Tampa Bay, which had just hired Dave Canales as its new offensive coordinator. Lock grew close to Canales last season when he was Seattle’s quarterbacks coach. They spent extensive time after practices working together on a game plan Lock would never use, just the two of then.
But then Lock signed a one-year contract to return to the Seahawks. It is paying him $3.5 million this season, plus $30,000 per game that he’s active for (up to an additional $510,000).
He signed back with Seattle about a week after the team gave Smith his big, new deal.
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Why did Lock return, knowing Smith was blocking his path to play in 2023 again?
“Man,” he said, sighing.
“Coach Carroll has been fantastic to me since I’ve been here. The way he runs this program and this organization, it’s fun. You want to come to work. You want to get better. You want to be there with your brothers in the locker room.
“I think in an environment like that, I just don’t think every place has it. This place was special to me.
“It’s just a really great place. It’s a really great place. I believe in the guys on this team. I believe...this can be a really, really good team.
“I want to be a part of something special. And this place is.”
Thing is, Lock’s best chance to play this season isn’t in Seattle, unless Smith gets hurt.
It’s if a starting quarterback elsewhere in the league gets hurt between now and the first week of the regular season after Labor Day.
Lock will raise his stock around the league if he plays well again next week plus in the preseason finale Aug. 26 at Green Bay. If a starting QB gets hurt between now and then, his team could be enticed to offer the Seahawks more than it otherwise would in a trade for a fifth-year veteran who has started 21 NFL games and would come relatively cheaply.
Up to $4 million for an NFL veteran isn’t a steep price for someone to pay for a new starting quarterback.
For one game (finally, for Lock, one game), he wasn’t focused on that.
Carroll isn’t, either.
Pete Carroll and the ‘gunslinger’
The coach’s Plan B is a guy he said last summer “has got some gunslinger in him.” As good as Lock was zipping a touchdown pass in to Eason Winston Jr. in tight coverage at the goal line on an audible, then looking away a defensive back to clear Jake Bobo’s path to a second TD pass, Lock threw a ghastly interception. In the third quarter, his pass lined directly to a Vikings defensive back in the middle of the field, with no Seahawk around. It was as if Lock didn’t see him.
In his three games for the Seahawks over two preseasons, he has five touchdowns with five turnovers.
The coach who famously wants his quarterbacks to be risk averse must to learn to trust Lock, if that becomes the Seahawks’ emergency need.
The next two weeks will determine if Carroll can indeed trust the gunslinger.
“I want him to be ready to start games. I want him to be ready to play football games and win championship games for us,” Carroll said. “He needs to play to do that. He sat around all last year.
“This formula of him getting three quarters, that’s great for him just to be out there playing football. He’s going to play a lot.”
This story was originally published August 11, 2023 at 3:58 PM.
