Drew Lock shuts down rumors of QB competition with Daniel Jones
The Giants’ signing of Drew Lock garnered some buzz this week when Seattle Seahawks GM John Schneider told a local radio station that the backup quarterback was sold on the idea of competing with Daniel Jones to be the starter.
But Lock set the record straight during his introductory news conference on Friday.
"Daniel Jones is the starter of this team and that’s been conveyed to me," he said. "I need to come in and push Daniel to be the best he can be. That’s the role I played for Geno [Smith], that’s the role I played for Teddy [Bridgewater], that’s the role Brett Rypien played for me in Denver.
"I’ve had both sides of this. I’ve been the guy to push the starter and I’ve been the guy pushed by the backups."
The comments Schneider made only fueled the reports that the Giants could be interested in replacing Jones a year after giving him a large contract and viewing him as the franchise quarterback.
But Lock said competing for the starting job never came up in his conversation.
"I had one conversation with Schneider. I called him after I made the decision to say thank you for the opportunities they gave me and for bringing me back to the player I used to be," he said. “"where it got left. He asked me if it was a one or two [year deal] I said it was one. He said awesome. I said thank you one more time, he said you were great for us and appreciate everything you did for us. That’s all the words I had with him in that conversation."
Lock, 27, actually cited his relationship with Jones as one of the selling points on coming to the Giants.
The two quarterbacks roomed together at the Senior Bowl in 2019 while playing for Jon Gruden’s team.
"We were both a little nervous going to those meetings with [Gruden] and standing up and going through those play-calls that we just learned a day ago," Lock recalled. "I remember both of us sitting there with our books late at night and it was like, 'OK, which one of us is going to fall asleep first? Whose going to beat the other guy saying I studied more?' That was the competitive nature we had and I had a lot of fun with him."
