Vic Fangio 'Disappointed' in Drew Lock, Broncos QBs for Breaking COVID Protocols

Denver Broncos head coach Vic Fangio said he was unhappy with quarterbacks Drew Lock, Brett Rypien and Blake Bortles after all three were ineligible to play in Sunday's 31-3 loss to the New Orleans Saints because they failed to follow the NFL's COVID-19 protocols.

"I was disappointed on several levels, that our quarterbacks put us in that position, that our quarterbacks put the league in that position," Fangio told reporters. "We count on them to be the leaders of our team, the leaders of our offense, and those guys made a mistake."

According to ProFootballTalk's Mike Florio, surveillance video footage from the Broncos quarterback meeting room showed "an issue with the quarterbacks properly wearing their masks." The team reportedly shared that information with the NFL, leading to the entire position group being placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list.

With no quarterbacks on the roster, the team turned to the coaching staff. ESPN's Adam Schefter reported the Broncos "wanted their starting quarterback to be Rob Calabrese, their offensive quality control coach for the past two years. Denver felt that Calabrese had the strongest command of its offense and he could run the system better than anybody."

The NFL nixed those plans, however, "saying that the Broncos could not activate a coach to their active roster. The league doesn't want coaching staffs being storage areas for potential players, sources said."

So instead of starting an assistant coach at quarterback, a sentence that could only be written in 2020, the team turned to practice squad receiver Kendall Hinton, who played quarterback at Wake Forest in his college career.

That...didn't go well. Hinton finished the game 1-of-9 for 13 yards and two interceptions. He was sacked once. Forced into a one-dimensional offense, the Broncos as a team managed just 112 yards from scrimmage and six first downs.

To put that into perspective, five running backs this week have had more than 112 rushing yards by themselves, and seven receivers thus far have posted at least 112 receiving yards. Tyreek Hill alone (269 receiving yards) more than doubled Denver's total yardage output.

The Broncos' lack of quarterbacks this week essentially guaranteed them a loss against a good Saints team.