ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — As the Broncos began organized team activities on Monday, quarterback Joe Flacco said he's focused on playing "the best football of my life."
His job, he said, is to win football games. Everything else is secondary.
"Joe's a pro," Head Coach Vic Fangio said. "Joe understands football, he gets it and he likes playing."
But that means as rookie quarterback Drew Lock adjusts to the Broncos' offensive system and the NFL, the impetus to learn will be on him.
"That's on Drew to soak in and learn," Fangio said.
Flacco, after all, has other pressing concerns.
"Joe's learning a new system himself," Fangio said.
As Flacco said Monday, that doesn't mean he is a "selfish person." It means he's focused on his role.
"Listen, I have so many things to worry about," Flacco said. "I'm trying to go out there and play good football. I'm trying to go out there and play the best football of my life. As far as a time constraint and all of that stuff, I'm not worried about developing guys or any of that. That is what it is. I hope he does it well. I don't look at that as my job. My job is to go win football games for this football team."
And while Flacco said he thinks he absorbs offenses "pretty quickly," there's still a lot for him to perfect in Offensive Coordinator Rich Scangarello's offense as the Broncos begin OTAs.
"Right now, it's just trying to learn the rhythm of the offense, the timing of your feet with your arm and the guys getting out of their breaks," Flacco said. "When you hear Rich talk about that and you watch it get done on film and you're able to take it out here on the practice field, you can start putting it together in your brain and walk yourself through it, and it gets really comfortable."
Von Miller and Co., though, are aiming to make Flacco uncomfortable. When the first-team units faced off on Monday, the defense appeared to gain the upper hand on more than one occasion.
"I felt like I had to slide a little bit at times and get the ball out of my hands," Flacco said. "Guys had to get open quick. Then there were times where it was hit your foot, get the ball out because the guy is open. I thought it was good. We're going to get tested every single day out there. We have a couple of guys on the edge that obviously can play football. Everybody else to go along with that — that's a good defense over there.
"Having experience throughout my career, it's an awesome test and an awesome advantage that we have to be able to go against a good defense, a good scheme and good pass-rushers. Everywhere you look, you have guys that can play. I think that's going to prepare us big time."
Flacco's focus appears set on meeting that challenge — even if it means Lock's tutelage falls on Scangarello instead of him.
That doesn't mean the second-round pick can't learn from Flacco. It just means Lock may spend more time talking with Scangarello and watching Flacco's timing on the field.
"Rich does such a good job in those meeting rooms," Flacco said. "Drew is going to learn from listening to him talk and then us getting the reps on the field and seeing how we all do it as a collective group of quarterbacks. Listen, I hope he does learn from me because that means we're out there and we're slinging it around and having a lot of fun. Because he's going to learn by watching us do it and watching us do it well. That is how he is going to learn the timing and all of those things is to be able to see it on film and hear Rich talk about it with me and digest as much of that as possible.
"Like I said, I hope he does learn from me because that means we're out there lighting it up."
