The Denver Broncos were left in an unenviable situation as none of its quarterbacks were eligible to play against the New Orleans Saints on Sunday following COVID-19 concerns. Instead, practice squad member Kendall Hinton, a quarterback at Wake Forest before switching to receiver, was placed on the active roster as the Denver quarterback.

Regular starter Drew Lock, who has not played since sustaining a rib injury against the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 10, took to Twitter to apologize for the situation, calling it “an honest mistake” after they “let (their) masking slip for a limited amount of time”.

On Monday, Laura Lock, the mother of the former Missouri standout, took to Twitter to clarify the situation, stating that Lock himself does not have COVID-19 and that all 4 quarterbacks had negative tests the day they gathered at the team facilities for a film session, which Lock had cleared with team officials beforehand. While Lock’s mother did confirm that the men “did not wear their masks the entire time”, she added that they were in a “socially distanced environment”.

However, she took to task critics “for thinking that they can speak of others in damning ways” while explaining how Lock and the entire family have taken precautions since the pandemic began. She also was critical of the NFL in their handling of the situation.

“Let’s interrogate those in the NFL that do have Covid – how safe were they being?” she tweeted. “Who was in their ‘ecosystem’ that shouldn’t have been or were they just not wearing their masks all the time?

“The NFL used one of their own as an example – this is where the same is,” she concluded.