Drew Lock, Throwing Hot, and QB Competition

Drew Lock's mistake in basic NFL quarterbacking may become a defining moment in the Seahawks 2022 competition

The Seahawks quarterback competition paused this past week after Drew Lock caught COVID. That was a particularly disappointing occurrence for Lock given the second preseason game versus the Chicago Bears was supposed to be Lock’s big moment, his shot with the ‘first-string’ offense. We now anxiously wait for Lock’s second run versus the Dallas Cowboys this Friday.

Regardless, Lock may already have lost the Seahawks’ QB battle to his rival Geno Smith. Though Smith has played solid-to-good football over the first pair of exhibition games, it is Lock’s own error that is the most significant play in the duel so far.  

Lock’s sack fumble against the Pittsburgh Steelers was disastrous and trust-breaking. There were two things that Lock could have done better and both were absent in the clutch moment, seeing the quarterback break the two tenets of Pete Carroll’s philosophy: it’s all; about the ball and win the game in the fourth quarter.

This is difficult to forget. That’s especially true when picking a starting NFL quarterback: basic errors like this have disastrous consequences on the whole team. In this video, I explain in detail how Lock should have re-set the Seahawks pass protection or thrown hot to the protection’s in-built answer.

It is worth noting that Russell Wilson occasionally failed to throw hot in games—sometimes with excellent results due to his elite improvizational ability but more often leading to similarly bad things. Wilson’s errors came usually when he had been heated up in games and shown a few different looks. Conversely, Lock had the time to collect himself.