Ten things about Sunday’s New Orleans-Bron­cos game, one for each rush­ing touch­down allowed this year by the Bron­cos’ defense:

1. Quar­ter­back Drew Lock is 8‑of-21 pass­ing for 201 yards, no touch­downs and one inter­cep­tion this year on attempts to receiv­er Jer­ry Jeudy that trav­el at least 16 “air” yards. The catch­es have gone for 18, 16, 43, 41, 16, 26, 19 and 22 yards. Last week against Mia­mi, Lock was 1 of 4 going long to Jeudy — the incom­ple­tions were 28, 28 and 38 yards downfield.

2. The sta­tis­tics aren’t great, but at least the Bron­cos are try­ing to stretch the field. Long pass­es are like the run­ning game — only a com­mit­ment to it will pro­duce good results. What the Bron­cos need to tight­en up is the appar­ent mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tions between Lock and Jeudy, which is semi-com­mon for a young quar­ter­back and even younger receiver.

3. Asked about the rap­port with Jeudy, Lock said: “It’s a week-by-week thing. One week it’s, ‘How good (of a) chem­istry we have,’ and the next week we miss two or three and it’s, ‘Oh, you guys are falling apart.’ We work hard in prac­tice. We get the extra throws. It’s just about hit­ting them in the game. It real­ly has noth­ing to do with us not being in sync or (not hav­ing) chem­istry or what­not. It just has every­thing to do with me putting the ball where it needs to be.”

4. Extend­ing the met­ric to any of Lock’s pass­es that have trav­eled at least 10 “air” yards since his return against New Eng­land, he was 6‑of-13 (two inter­cep­tions) at New Eng­land, 2‑of‑7 (inter­cep­tion) vs. Kansas City, 4‑of-10 (inter­cep­tion, touch­down) vs. the Charg­ers, 7‑of-17 (touch­down, inter­cep­tion) at Atlanta, 5‑of-13 (three inter­cep­tions) at Las Vegas and 5‑of-13 (inter­cep­tion) vs. Miami.

5. Saints coach Sean Pay­ton on Lock: “He’s get­ting more and more com­fort­able with their sys­tem. He can move out­side the pock­et and beat you with throws down the field. That’s the one thing — his abil­i­ty to stretch the field.”

6. New Orleans’ pass rush may make this a short-to-inter­me­di­ate throw­ing game for Lock. In last week’s win over Atlanta, the Saints had eight sacks, their high­est sin­gle-game total in at least 15 years. Accord­ing to my game chart­ing, the Saints rushed five or more play­ers on 18 Matt Ryan drop-backs, which pro­duced one take­away and four sacks. The Saints’ 32 sacks this year are tied for third in the league.

7. One of my favorite per­son­nel group­ings was on rare dis­play by the Saints last week for a goal-line touch­down run by quar­ter­back Taysom Hill: One quar­ter­back, three tight ends and a sixth offen­sive line­man. Old school, pow­er-play football.

8. So what does Bron­cos offen­sive coor­di­na­tor Pat Shur­mur do for a run-game fol­low-up? The Saints are sec­ond in stop­ping the run (74.3 yards per game). Stick­ing with a steady diet of two- and three-tight end per­son­nel could be Shurmur’s best course. In last week’s win over Mia­mi, the Bron­cos used two-tight end per­son­nel on 31 snaps and three-tight end per­son­nel on nine snaps. With two tight ends, the Bron­cos rushed 19 times for 72 yards; with three tight ends, it was four rush­es for a yard (but a touch­down). The extra tight end (or two) could also help in pass protection.

9. Dur­ing his video con­fer­ence Thurs­day, for­mer Broncos/current Saints receiv­er Emmanuel Sanders didn’t express any dis­plea­sure with his depar­ture from Den­ver last year. (And real­ly, he shouldn’t — he got flipped to San Fran­cis­co and end­ed up play­ing in the Super Bowl). “I love every­body in that orga­ni­za­tion, espe­cial­ly the peo­ple who were there dur­ing the Super Bowl times and the good times,” he said. “I  think of John Elway, just a guy who gave me an oppor­tu­ni­ty and believed in me. He gave me an oppor­tu­ni­ty to play with Pey­ton Man­ning and I’m for­ev­er grateful.”

10. The Bron­cos’ defense has forced 13 three-and-outs in the last three games, match­ing their total from the first sev­en games. But they are still on the field for long dri­ves too often. Oppo­nents have 21 pos­ses­sions of at least 10 plays this year, includ­ing eight in the last three games (Atlanta, Las Vegas and Miami).