They wont suffer, its THE SAME MONEY, just pushed out until next year, so they would have payed him this year instead of next, its a push. As far as i can see from all the cap sites and here on the board.The Broncos did not want to play Lock to start the year. That's fine - I didn't want Lock to start Week 1 either.
But then they restructured Flacco's deal right before the season, which means they will suffer if they cut him after this year. Now that doesn't make a lot of sense if the plan is to work Lock in during the season sometime.
Of course Lock was injured, so maybe they figured they'd redshirt him - but being as bad as they were meant that they would be drafting high in the first round again and needed to know if Lock was worth foregoing another top QB draft option in favor of help in other areas. So he HAD to play.
They still wouldn't "rush" him or even commit to pulling him off IR. If Brandon Allen had not completely faceplanted in bad weather and put up one of the worst Broncos performances in decades on offense, Lock might not have gotten on the field still. They were talking about holding him until the last 2 or 3 games of the year.
Drew took good advantage of his time healing and recovering. The VR system seems to have helped with his reads. He has had more time to get comfortable with what is being asked of him. But Denver can't really sell this as the plan all along, because it wasn't. It took a lot of carnage to get here. The 11-car pileup that was Denver's first 11 games resulted in what looks like the correct deployment schedule for Lock, and I'm glad. I wanted to see a bunch of him so that Denver could see what he offered over several games, and enough game tape for teams to adjust, before the draft decisions had to be made.
Lock is playing it like he really is the QBOTF. Sometimes you just get lucky in how that comes about. Denver's next goal should be to keep him alive. Fix the line, yo. It helps now that the first round pick won't be a QB, like it helped that Denver managed to snag Lock in the 2nd after passing on him in the first.
But thank luck, not planning. It wasn't great process to get here, so try to enact better process in giving your newly-minted QBOTF his best chance at long-term success please.