CANTON, Ohio — Drew Lock didn't finish his NFL debut with a perfect passer rating, a slew of completions or even a touchdown.
On several occasions, the second-round pick had the chance to complete a deep pass and missed by the smallest of margins.
Lock, though, did finish his 7-of-11 passing performance with a little bit of perspective.
"I'll rate it as a learning game," Lock said following the game. "There's definitely things I'll learn there, but I'm excited that I'm sitting here and that was the first time ever stepping out on the field.
"It was the Hall of Fame game. It wasn't the Super Bowl, it wasn't the playoffs — so there's a lot of things for me to learn, a lot of things for me to look forward to, to progress a little bit."
Head Coach Vic Fangio seemed to keep the same perspective after watching Lock for two quarters of action. Lock took over for Kevin Hogan at the beginning of the second quarter and guided the Broncos' offense until Brett Rypien replaced him for the second possession of the fourth quarter.
"I was hoping for more, but [I'm] not surprised," Fangio said. "He's still got a lot of work to do. I thought his accuracy wasn't clean all the time along with his reads, but that's to be expected. We've got four more games and we've got to get him ready — more ready than he is right now."
On his first drive, Lock looked deep down the field for first-round pick Noah Fant, but the pass was slightly overthrown. On his next drive, he looked down the right sideline for Khalfani Muhammad. Then, in the third quarter, Lock found Dave Williams on a swing route on third-and-6, but Williams dropped the pass.
"I feel like if I hit a couple of those passes, then I'd feel a little better about the game, but there's definitely things I'll need to work on after watching the film," Lock said.
Lock looked to find some semblance of a rhythm as he completed two consecutive passes to move the ball to the Atlanta 48-yard line at the beginning of the fourth quarter. On fourth-and-1, trailing by three points, Lock and the offense attempted to convert the first down. Running back Devontae Jackson, though, was stopped in the backfield.
"I think it's what you can expect from an opener," Lock said. "A couple ups, a couple downs — but it's good that we can look at it. There's a lot of things we can work on, especially myself, and go in and get ready for the next one."
He won't have to wait long, as the Broncos face the Seahawks on Aug. 8.
"You get your first taste of it, and you just keep wanting more and you want more, and that's how I am right now," Lock said. "The days are going to go by slow until our next game."
