Dynasty Prospect Profile: Drew Lock
Drew Lock, QB, Missouri
Height: 6’4
Weight: 228 pounds
Age: 22.3
Combine results:
(percentile rank among all QBs at the Combine since 1999, courtesy of mockdraftable.com)
40-yard dash: 4.69 seconds (79th percentile)
Vertical: 31 inches (48th)
Broad: 112 inches (58th)
3-cone: 7.03 seconds (67th)
20-yard shuttle: 4.12 seconds (86th)
College career:
Lock could have chosen a school with an even higher profile. He turned down scholarship offers from Ohio State, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Texas (among others) to sign with the school from the town where he was born. And the decision paid off.
Lock took the QB job from Maty Mauk in Week 5 of his freshman season and started the final 8 contests. He endured 25 sacks while completing less than half of his throws for the 5-7 Tigers.
Sophomore year produced 3,399 passing yards, which ranked Lock 2nd in the SEC and 22nd nationally. Lock helped pad those stats, however, with 450 yards and 5 TDs against Eastern Michigan, plus another 402 and 5 against Delaware State. Those 2 outings accounted for 25.1% of his season yards and 43.5% of his TD throws. Lock averaged 248.3 yards and 1.3 TDs across 8 conference games for the 4-8 Tigers.
Lock broke out statistically as a junior, while hrowing to now-Packer WR J’Mon Moore, 2019 prospect WR Emmanuel Hall and likely 2020 NFL prospect TE Albert Okwuegbunam. Lock delivered an FBS-leading and SEC-record 44 TD passes. His 3,964 yards also led the conference and ranked 10th nationally. The QB also piloted his team to 6 straight victories in the 2nd half to qualify for his 1st bowl game (the Texas Bowl, vs. Texas). That streak included 4 straight SEC wins.
With Moore gone, Lock’s totals dipped last season. But his completion rate improved for the 3rd consecutive season. Pro Football Focus rated the senior 13th nationally in adjusted completion rate and 6th in adjusted completion rate vs. pressure. The dip in yards per attempt reflected a decrease in pass depth. After cracking the nation’s top 10 in average depth of target at “over 11 yards per pass” as a junior, Lock ranked just 27th in that category as a senior. He lost more than 1.5 yards off his average. Mizzou, though, went 8-5, losing a shootout to Oklahoma State in the Liberty Bowl.
Luck continued to fatten up on non-conference opponents over his final 2 years. He improved his SEC numbers as a junior, averaging 274.6 yards and 3.1 TDs per game in conference. But even that paled in comparison to the 408.5 and 4.8 out of conference.
As a senior, Lock struggled through a tough SEC run that included Alabama, averaging just 214.1 yards and 1.3 TDs across 8 contests. Outside the conference, he racked up 357 yards and 3.6 scores per game.
Film study:
Games watched -- Georgia (2016), West Virginia (2016), Arkansas (2016), Kentucky (2017), Arkansas (2017), Auburn (2017), Georgia (2018), Alabama (2018), Kentucky (2018)
Courtesy of @WhatsOnDraftNFL
The arm is the thing with Lock. Let’s start with a few throws from his sophomore campaign.
Watch those last 2 throws again and realize that he didn’t need to step into either.
Lock knows how strong his arm is. He believes in it. And he’s ready to trust it. That can be a good thing, like when he threads this sideline laser between a pair of Alabama defenders (with some help from a nice catch) …
But it can also be a problem. Here’s Lock as a 2017 junior -- with a 3-point, 2nd-quarter lead at Arkansas and in FG range -- trying to force a 3rd-down throw into a spot that wasn’t there …
Even when the decision-making is fine, Lock has trouble at times harnessing that cannon attached to his right shoulder.
I saw WR drops create INTs on at least 2 occasions among the 9 Lock games I watched. But I also saw multiple spots where the QB got away with misfires that should have been picked. That inconsistent accuracy shows up in his lackluster completion rates.
Lock’s less-obvious positive trait is solid mobility. He didn’t turn that strong 40 time (79th percentile among QBs) into big rushing production in college. But Lock did find the end zone 6 times on the ground as a senior and could be good for a couple of TDs a year if he sticks as an NFL starter.
Fantasy outlook:
Kyler Murray is an outlier as a QB that you’ll actually want to target in dynasty rookie drafts. Lock is most certainly not. Frankly, he’s probably not even a clean enough prospect to be worth a 3rd-round shot in rookie drafts.
Accuracy has started to emerge among analytics folks as a key component to projecting QB success (or failure) in the pros. As I mentioned in the Kyler Murray profile, Josh Hermsmeyer recently introduced “completion percentage over expected” via FiveThirtyEight to help measure accuracy and look ahead on QB prospects.
Well, that component -- along with Josh’s yards-per-attempt projection system that incorporates CPOE -- doesn’t bode well for Lock’s outlook. Hermsmeyer’s equation projects 13 other 2019 prospects as more likely to reach the NFL-average threshold of 7.1 yards per attempt career.
Reviews from the tape-grinding crowd seem a bit more mixed, but you’ll find plenty of lukewarm-to-negative assessments. Matthew Stafford and Jay Cutler are most often mentioned as comps. The low end also churned out Blaine Gabbert (from Rotoworld’s Thor Nystrom) and Paxton Lynch (Draft Network’s Kyle Crabbs).
All 4 of those QBs, of course, got drafted in Round 1.
The Stafford and Cutler comps line up stat wise:
Only Stafford among those 4 has managed to stick with the team that drafted him. He also entered the league as a much cleaner prospect than Lock, though. And even Stafford has seen wide swings in his fantasy production. The current version of Stafford isn’t a player you’d chase in dynasty drafts.
Lock’s ceiling might be Cutler, a career that probably included more rushing value than you realized. Cutler averaged 314 rushing yards per college season and then averaged 176 yards per 16 games in the NFL. Lock outran Cutler 4.69 to 4.77 in the Scouting Combine 40.
Lock’s NFL Draft destination could help his outlook a bit, but expect to find him in Round 4-5 consideration once our rookie-draft rankings arrive.