ENGLEWOOD, Colo. —When the Broncos drafted Jerry Jeudy in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft, quarterback Drew Lock wasn't too surprised.
John Elway had spoken for months about the team's need to add to the wide receiver position, and Jeudy represented great value at pick No. 15.
But when the Broncos went on the clock again in the second round and selected Penn State wide receiver KJ Hamler with the 46th-overall pick, that's when Elway and Co. got Lock's attention.
"I kind of expected the receiver in the first round, but then when I'm watching that second round the next day and it popped up that we drafted another one, I was like, 'All right, we're rolling now,'" Lock told NFL Network's Kay Adams on Friday. "We've got some stallions. We're going to be pushing the ball down field a little bit. … And then when you get a teammate you played with in college, that's another plus.
"I'd say that Drew Lock probably won the NFL Draft this year."
The teammate to which Lock referred is former Missouri tight end Albert Okwuegbunam, whom the Broncos drafted in the fourth round.
As Lock watched the second and third rounds, he wondered why Okwuegbunam was still available.
"I was watching some tight ends go off the board," Lock said. "I'm a little biased, I think Albert O's very good. So I was like, 'How has no one picked my guy yet?' I texted him that night."
Lock said he told his former college teammate that he needed to use the slight as motivation for the future.
"It ended up being the same thing that I was feeling: that there was never going to be a time that he's going to forget this feeling," Lock sad. "If there's a time where he maybe wanted to rest his eyes, go to bed a little early, he's going to stay up. He's going to work even harder. He's going to be ready. He's going to dedicate all his time to this. I know that sounds cliché and you hear that story about guys falling and then saying they've got a chip on their shoulder now, but that's real.
"That's a real thing. I couldn't be more thankful for that chip that I got after falling into that second round and being at the draft and watching 32 guys walk right next to me."
Lock, who attended the 2019 NFL Draft but fell to the second round, said he saw former Bronco Al Wilson on the night he was finally taken with the 42nd-overall pick. Wilson gave Lock the draft card the Broncos turned in, and Lock put the card into his backpack.
"I have not moved this from my backpack," Lock said. "I think about this every day. This is my actual draft card. … I kept that in my backpack, so I'd be lying if I said I don't think about it every single day. It's there every day. I keep my pencils there. I open that pouch and I see that bad boy every day."
As Lock continues to try to prove himself in the NFL, he now has a set of weapons that includes Jeudy, Hamler, Okwuegbunam, Courtland Sutton, Phillip Lindsay, Melvin Gordon and Noah Fant.
"Looking at it now, we've got a ton of guys around the field," Lock said. "We're going to be able to push the ball deep. You're gonna have to put a lot of fast guys on the field to try to cover us, and then you look at our backfield, we've got Phillip and we have Melvin, too. People are talking about our receivers right now obviously from the draft, but [you] can't forget about those backs that we have in Denver now."
