Ques­tion: Bron­cos receiv­er Jer­ry Jeudy dropped five pass­es in Sunday’s 19–16 loss to the Los Ange­les Charg­ers. A tough grad­ing scale or straight drops?

Answer: Straight drops. All of them.

Per the Den­ver Post’s game chart­ing, Jeudy had five dropped pass­es in the Bron­cos’ first 14 games. He matched that against the Chargers.

Jeudy didn’t have a drop until the two-minute mark of the sec­ond quar­ter. Review­ing each drop:

1. First-and-10, Bron­cos 47. Jeudy ran an out route from the left slot and Drew Lock’s throw six yards down­field looked a lit­tle wide at first glance, but after fur­ther review, it was dropped.

2. Sec­ond-and-10, Bron­cos 47. On the next play, Jeudy ran a slant from the left wide loca­tion, but dropped Lock’s throw eight yards downfield.

3. First-and-10, Bron­cos 28. On the first play of the sec­ond half, Jeudy was wide left and ran a five-yard slant. Lock’s throw was a lit­tle low, but Jeudy should have made the play uncontested.

4. Third-and‑5, Charg­ers 12. Lined up wide right, Jeudy ran a cor­ner route to beat cor­ner­back Michael Davis. Lock’s throw was well-placed over Davis, but Jeudy dropped the touchdown.

5. Sec­ond-and-10, Bron­cos 25. On the Bron­cos’ final dri­ve, Lock stepped up in the pock­et and threw a 45-yard pass deep mid­dle to Jeudy, who worked from the left slot. The pass went through Jeudy’s hands.

Noth­ing next Sun­day against Las Vegas is on the line so the Bron­cos should pri­or­i­tize help­ing Jeudy fin­ish on a suc­cess­ful note.

Q: Where was the break­down (or break­downs) on the Charg­ers’ 53-yard kick return to open the game?

A: There were breakdowns.

Bran­don McManus’ kick­off only went to the 8‑yard line and had 4.00 sec­onds of hang time. Nasir Adder­ley almost imme­di­ate­ly veered left toward daylight.

The Bron­cos’ LeV­ante Bel­lamy tried to avoid a block and took him­self out of a run­ning lane. Trey Mar­shall over­com­mit­ted so he was out of posi­tion when Adder­ley turned left. And Ali­jah Hold­er (inside) and Dae­Sean Hamil­ton (out­side) took bad angles.

The kick return led to a Charg­ers field goal and a near-imme­di­ate 3–0 lead.

Q: If you had to rank Lock’s poor throw­ing deci­sions this year, where would his open­ing-dri­ve inter­cep­tion rank?

A: Pret­ty much at the top of this list. It was a head-scratcher.

The Bron­cos had put togeth­er a sol­id first pos­ses­sion, string­ing togeth­er gains of six, eight, six, five, sev­en, one, sev­en, six, three, one and 17 yards to reach the Charg­ers’ 16.

Lock faced a third-and‑6, Hamil­ton was lined up in the left slot and the back­field was emp­ty after Royce Free­man motioned to wide right.

At the snap, Lock dropped straight back, but was flushed left out of the pock­et. Lock kept his eyes down­field as he was being chased from behind by defen­sive line­man Jesse Lemonier. Cor­ner­back Chris Har­ris was charg­ing toward Lock.

Lock had three options: 1. Throw it away. 2. Scram­ble to make for a short­er field goal attempt. 3. Force a throw into traffic.

He chose No. 3. His side-armed, awk­ward throw was behind Hamil­ton, who deflect­ed it into the end zone and to the hands of Charg­ers cor­ner­back Casey Hayward.

Bad sit­u­a­tion­al awareness.

Q: On the Charg­ers’ win­ning dri­ve, what the key play?

A: Justin Herbert’s 23-yard pass to Jalen Guyton.

Austin Ekel­er start­ed the pos­ses­sion with an 11-yard car­ry to the 36. Fill-in cor­ner­back Par­nell Mot­ley, who had replaced De’Vante Baus­by, gave Guy­ton six yards of cushion.

At the snap, Mot­ley went into a full-speed back-ped­al, obvi­ous­ly wary of get­ting beat deep.

When Guy­ton caught Herbert’s pass, Mot­ley was four yards down­field from him. Way too conservative.

One of the rea­sons why the Bron­cos have strug­gled all year with take­aways? They don’t break up many pass­es, a prod­uct of not con­test­ing more routes.