Taylor: My personal definition of a franchise QB is “good enough that the team awards him a 4+ year 2nd contract at or near the top of the QB market”. My definition of a franchise QB makes determining that a necessarily long term thing, so in the shorter term “the guy” is the QB who the franchise’s hopes are resting on. In order to become “the guy”, Lock needs to either beat Flacco outright or otherwise replace him. I’d prefer it to be the former, because that’ll mean he’s really earned it.
A few of those guys are teetering on the brink of falling out of franchise QB status.