Ques­tion: Safe­ty Justin Sim­mons said the Bron­cos’ first-half defense was “ter­ri­ble.” What was par­tic­u­lar­ly awful?

Answer: Just about every­thing. In the first half, Atlanta had eight plays that gained at least 10 yards and built a 20–3 lead.

On the first play, cor­ner­back Michael Oje­mu­dia slipped, free­ing up tight end Hay­den Hurst for 11 yards. On the sec­ond dri­ve, cor­ner­back Davon­tae Har­ris was beat­en on a go route for a 51-yard touch­down. On the third dri­ve, Har­ris kept his eyes on a scram­bling Matt Ryan instead of his assign­ment (42-yard com­ple­tion). And on the third dri­ve, cor­ner­back Kevin Toliv­er, sub­bing for Har­ris, allowed a 21-yard pass.

The pass rush had only five dis­rup­tions (one sack, two knock­downs and two pres­sures) in the first half.

Q: The Bron­cos tried every cor­ner­back avail­able. What’s next on Vic Fangio’s draw­ing board?

A: If A.J. Bouye (con­cus­sion) and Bryce Calla­han (ankle) aren’t avail­able Sun­day at Las Vegas, Fan­gio real­ly has no choice but to stick with Oje­mu­dia and Bassey as his base pack­age starters.

But in the nick­el, giv­ing Duke Daw­son a shot should be explored; he’s been lim­it­ed to dime per­son­nel work as the sixth defen­sive back this year.

And if the slot receivers are real­ly giv­ing the Bron­cos prob­lems, mov­ing safe­ty Kareem Jack­son down to cov­er should be considered.

Over­all, though, help isn’t on the way.

Q: What were the take­aways from quar­ter­back Drew Lock’s postgame press conference?

A: Just that he’s a young play­er who is frus­trat­ed by a sea­son slip­ping away at 3–5.

Lock is usu­al­ly the sym­bol of con­fi­dence, but even he couldn’t hide his dis­ap­point­ment with anoth­er first-half no-show by the offense. We’d rather see that kind of pas­sion than an atti­tude that every­body gets orange slices and juice box­es regard­less of the result.

The worst sta­tis­tic: The Bron­cos had 13 plays in the first half that gained three or few­er yards com­pared with only two explo­sive plays — 32-yard catch by tight end Noah Fant and an 18-yard catch by receiv­er Jer­ry Jeudy.

Q: Did it seem like the Bron­cos’ offense ran a lot on sec­ond-and-long? If so, what’s the point?

A: The Bron­cos had a whop­ping 19 sec­ond-down plays in which they need­ed sev­en or more yards. They ran sev­en times for a com­bined 41 yards.

For as long as there’s been pro foot­ball, play-callers have adopt­ed sec­ond-and-long as a run down, the the­o­ry being it would pro­duce a pos­i­tive gain to set up a short­er third down.

KJ Ham­ler gained 15 yards on a sec­ond-and‑8 end-around. But that was pret­ty much it for suc­cess­ful sec­ond-down rush­es. What it also points out: The Bron­cos’ first-down offense is incon­sis­tent at best and bro­ken at worst.

Q: Just when the Bron­cos threw to tight end Albert Okwueg­bunam, he sus­tained a right knee injury. Who’s left at tight end?

A: Noah Fant and Nick Van­nett. That’s it. Okwueg­bunam was see­ing reg­u­lar work in one- and two-tight end per­son­nel, but didn’t have a catch until his sev­en-yard recep­tion to con­vert a third-and‑6 in the third quarter.

Minus Albert O, all the Bron­cos had active was Fant and Van­nett. Jake Butt and Andrew Beck were recent­ly placed on injured reserve.

A strength of the Bron­cos’ — their tight end depth — is now a concern.