Originally Posted by
Shazam!
The Line got terribly worse after SB 50 with what, four new Starters for 2016? All downhill from there.
Lock did show that an effective QB can HELP the OLine, while Flacco especially did nothing to help... Anyone.
Line went down post SB 50, but I think what we saw more than anything, was the lack of credit most of us gave to Manning for overcoming a bad line, even when he could barely throw the ball 25 yards in the air. His adjustments and recognition of defenses, allowed him to overcome shoddy line play even in the SB50 year.
An average QB (Siemian) or bad QBs (Keenum/Flacco), simply can't do the same. If the Broncos had the kind of line that Dallas had when Dak was a rookie, and had a great RB to go with the line, then it would have been easy to overcome average or bad QBs. However, when you have an average or bad line, you need to have excellent QB play to over come it.
While we can't yet say Lock is an excellent QB, what we can say is that he clearly is better at reacting to pressure than any QB we've had since Manning. Where Flacco got happy feet and often "scrambled" (I use that word loosely, as it was more of a shuffle with feet in concrete) into rushing defenders and regularly made bad decisions under pressure (as did Keenum), Lock so far seems to have the natural ability to scramble/move away from pressure, to buy time to make a throw and then has the arm strength to flip the ball 40 yards even if backpedaling.
Good to great QB play can overcome bad or average line performance, but if you have average or bad line performance, then average or bad QBs will never succeed.
You don't have to have both a great QB and great line, but you need one or the other to be consistently good.