Let the Lock Watch begin if Flacco founders

Short, slow and crazy enough to beat himself with a hammer, Gardner Minshew is a quarterback John Elway would never ever pick to lead his football team.

But it’s come to this for the Broncos: If steady, old Joe Flacco can’t beat the young, brash Minshew when Jacksonville comes to town, the Flacco era will be over, for all intents and purposes, before it has a chance to begin. And the intrigue of this NFL season will also be history in Denver, except for the date when rookie Drew Lock takes over as the team’s starting quarterback.

I vote for Nov. 3 against Cleveland, the earliest Lock can come off injured reserve after recovering from a thumb injury, as the ideal time for the rookie from Missouri to start his first game for the Broncos.

This team is rebuilding, even if Elway doesn’t want to admit it.

Denver needs to start gearing up for next year ASAP. After opening the season with three straight losses, burdened by an anemic offense that ranks 29th out of 32 teams in points per game, the Broncos are in deep trouble. And they know it.

“There’s been that sense of urgency about us having to win,” Flacco said Wednesday. “Historically, I don’t know that there’s any team, or obviously too many teams, starting off at 0-3 and are able to rebound and get themselves back in a playoff spot.”

Flacco’s sense of history is nearly as keen as his sense of urgency.

While die-hard Broncomaniacs faithfully cling to the belief our local heroes are better than their 0-3 record would indicate, only six of 176 NFL teams since 1980 that have begun the season by losing three straight have recovered to make the playoffs.

If your glass is half-full of Orange Kool-Aid, you will remind me Houston overcame an 0-3 start to qualify for the postseason just last year. The Texans, however, were the first 0-3 team to pull off that stunt since 1998.

“You guys are sitting here not believing in us. If you’re a true fan, then you believe in us. If you’re not, if you’re just a bandwagoner, then you’re going to believe what you want to believe,” said running back Phillip Lindsay, challenging commentators (like me) that have buried the Broncos.

“At the end of the day, we have a lot of football left. If you haven’t played this game, then you just don’t know. You’re looking on the outside. We have a lot of games left and we can still be in the playoffs and we can still make a big run for it. When we do it, I don’t want everybody jumping on the bandwagon saying, ‘I told you so.’”

I have long admired the never-say-die fight and unshakable confidence of Lindsay. Those are traits he shares with Minshew, a quarterback I last saw play in Colorado in November 2018, when he led Washington State to a 31-7 shellacking of the Buffaloes at Folsom Field.

When I asked Minshew his recollections of that game, his reply was uttered with the in-your-face swag of a Post Malone song.

“I remember we should’ve beaten them worse,” Minshew said.

Despite being a sixth-round draft pick, the legend of Minshew has gone viral since he took over for injured Jacksonville veteran Nick Foles during the season opener. While dressing in clothes plucked off the set of Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and admitting during a recent interview on the “Pardon My Take” podcast that he unsuccessfully tried breaking his hand with a hammer to earn a redshirt season of eligibility in college, Minshew has bashed the conventional wisdom NFL quarterbacks should never be seen or heard as rookies.

With his first 88 passes as a pro, Minshew has completed 73.9% and thrown for five touchdowns for a 110.6 quarterback rating.

With his first 76 passes as a member of the Broncos, Flacco has completed 69.1% and thrown for two touchdowns for an 87.4 quarterback rating.

But know what’s really mind-boggling?

While the Jaguars have turned Minshew loose and granted him permission to stretch the field with throws, only 5.5% of Flacco’s passes have traveled 20-plus yards in the air, the lowest rate in the league, according to the analysts at Pro Football Focus.

“We probably haven’t pushed the ball deep down the field on some actual length of throw yet, but we’re getting there,” Flacco said.

So what is a team stuck with a 0-3 record waiting for?

If the Broncos are going to treat Flacco with kid gloves, they might as well give the job as soon as possible to the kid and see what Lock can do.