Drew Lock clarifies his role in the Giants' quarterback room
Drew Lock warms up before the Seahawks faced the Arizona Cardinals last January. Credit: AP/Rick Scuteri
The Giants made the signing of quarterback Drew Lock official on Friday. What this means in the bigger picture can’t be known yet.
But Lock tried to make one thing clear in his introduction to the New York media.
“Daniel Jones is the starter of this team,” he said. “Now I need to come in and push Daniel to be the best that 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 that Brett Rypien played for me when I was a starter in Denver. I’ve had both sides of this. I’ve been a guy to push the starter, I’ve been a guy that’s been pushed by the backups. It’s about making that room the best it can be. If we can do that, the sky’s the limit for that.”
With Jones still on the mend after suffering an ACL tear last season, Lock was signed as the backup. He has played in 28 games, including four last season with the Seahawks. He played in 24 games with the Broncos from 2019-21.
Seahawks general manager John Schneider told Seattle Sports Radio 710AM that the Giants sold Lock on the possibility that he could start. In Seattle, he definitely would have been a backup behind Smith.
“[The Giants] basically sold him on the opportunity to compete to be the starter,” Schneider told the radio station on Thursday. “And he felt like it was the right opportunity. He looked at Baker Mayfield’s opportunity last year and felt that this could be something similar.”
When asked about his former general manager’s comments, Lock said, “Yeah, I got told about it. I’m not on social media too much. I had one conversation with [Schneider]. I called him after I decided to come here. I wanted to say thank you for the opportunities they gave me and for bringing back the old player I used to be. That’s really where it got left.
“He asked me if it was one or two [years]. I said it’s a one. He said awesome. I just said thank you one more time. He said you were great for us and appreciate all you did for us. That’s all the words I had for him in that conversation.”
The Giants also signed tight end Jack Stoll, pending a physical, on Friday. Undrafted out of Nebraska in 2021, the 6-4, 247-pound Stoll spent his first three seasons with the Eagles.
Kimberly Jones covers the Giants for Newsday, a beat she first worked in the early 2000s before joining the YES Network to cover the Yankees. She worked for the NFL Network for more than a decade and has been heard semi-regularly on WFAN.
