Hey, at least he got his con­di­tion­ing in.

“Some­times, drops hap­pen,” Jer­ry Jeudy, the Bron­cos’ young wide­out, said Sun­day after Denver’s 19–16 loss at the Los Ange­les Charg­ers, the longest day for No. 10 in what’s already been a long rook­ie sea­son. “I’m watch­ing the ball come in. I just dropped it. And I’ve just got to focus on the next play. It just hap­pened too many times (Sun­day). That’s unacceptable.”

Dang straight. We ran out of excus­es five loss­es ago, kid. Week 1 drops? Rook­ie jit­ters. Week 4 drops? Youth. Week 10 drops? Hit­ting the wall. Week 12 drops? OK, the narrative’s in pencil.

Week 16 drops?

That narrative’s in ink now.

Only one guy can change it.

“(I told him), ‘You have to let it go,’” Bron­cos quar­ter­back Drew Lock said of his young wide­out. “’You have to go out there because, you nev­er know when there’s 30 sec­onds left, and you might be able to have the ball in your hands to win the game, and then all those drops are for­got­ten about.’”

With 30 sec­onds to go, Jeudy, poet­i­cal­ly, had the ball in his hands. On tar­get No. 15 of the after­noon, Lock spot­ted No. 10 com­ing open across the mid­dle of the field on sec­ond-and-10 with 35 sec­onds left, Bron­cos down three. Fir­ing from his own 25, Lock dropped a dime in front of two clos­ing L.A. defend­ers near the Charg­ers 30.

Jeudy dropped that one, too.

“I looked it in,” the Bron­cos receiv­er stressed. “I was look­ing, in slow motion, I looked it in. I just couldn’t bring it in.”

Among NFL wide­outs with at least 60 tar­gets going in to Week 16, only two had a catch rate — catch­es divid­ed by tar­gets — of less than 50%: The Ben­gals’ A.J. Green (47.3% on 91 tar­gets) and Jeudy (45.1% on 91 targets).

Green’s earned his stripes. Jeudy’s dig­ging him­self a hole. And a rep. Even if he faced the music after the game, Bron­cos fans have heard enough of this tune already: 15 tar­gets against the Charg­ers, six recep­tions (catch rate: 40%), 61 receiv­ing yards, five drops. Five.

If you want the ball, kid, you sure got a fun­ny way of show­ing it.

“I can’t dwell on this, real­ly,” said Jeudy, who raised eye­brows a few weeks ago for post­ing a Twit­ter com­ment — At least I got my con­di­tion­ing in — after get­ting just four tar­gets dur­ing a loss at Kansas City. “Just focus on the lit­tle details that I need to focus on to get bet­ter and work on my craft.”

Less time with the thumbs, kid. More time on the hands.

You want to talk trash on social media? Start catch­ing at least half the balls thrown your way first.

“(The ball) most def­i­nite­ly came to me,” Jeudy said. “Like I said, I’ve got to make the play. Ain’t nobody (stop­ping) me. I’m open. I’ve just got to fin­ish. I beat myself today.”

A guy who runs great routes but can’t catch the ball is a pitch­er with a 100 mph fast­ball who can’t throw strikes. A point guard who can drib­ble the rock with both hands blind­fold­ed but can’t make a free throw to save his life.

Jeudy is the play­er who gets quar­ter­backs roast­ed on talk radio, then benched. The kind who get coach­es fired. Not here, mind you. But in nor­mal towns with nor­mal fran­chis­es with nor­mal front offices and nor­mal own­er­ship set-ups where there’s stan­dards at the top and account­abil­i­ty at the bottom.

He’s a John Elway prob­lem, now. One of many. NFL scouts warned us that Lock was Cap­tain Streaky com­ing out of col­lege, and that the cold streaks can kill. They also said that if Jeudy had a flaw, any flaw, it was incon­sis­tent hands.

Put the two togeth­er, and you get Sun­day, an offense where noth­ing in the pass­ing game seems to click at the same time. Tim Patrick is one of those feel-good sto­ries you root for. But when he’s the most reli­able option Lock has in a pinch, what does that say about the No. 15 pick in the 2020 draft?

Jeudy’s not the only rea­son why the Bron­cos limped to a 10th defeat. That said, if he snares one in the end zone dur­ing the first quar­ter and a rain­bow near the L.A. 30 in the fourth, that’s a nine-point swing, poten­tial­ly, in a game Den­ver lost by a field goal.

It’s the sim­ple math that hurts the most.

And the tim­ing that kills you.

In the SEC, the dif­fer­ence is the num­ber of stars behind your name in the recruit­ing rank­ings. In the NFL, the dif­fer­ence is the space between your ears.

Jeudy doesn’t turn 22 until next April. The ceiling’s still there, even if we’ve spent too much of the last two months scrap­ing the floor. Bron­co­ma­ni­acs will remind you of Court­land Sutton’s up-and-down rook­ie year of 2018 and Fant’s roller-coast­er debut cam­paign last fall.

Sutton’s catch rate two years ago: 50%.

Fant’s catch rate in 2019: 60.6%.

Justin Jefferson’s catch rate going into Week 16: 69.9%.

CeeDee Lamb’s catch rate: 66.7%.

Hen­ry Rug­gs III’s catch rate: 57.5%.

Jeudy’s catch rate: 45.1%.

Some­times, drops hap­pen. To everybody.

“It’s all about how you respond, how you get back up,” Lock said. “And I know Jer­ry has been so good to this point that this might be one of the first times he’s struggled.”

Smart NFL cook­ies will tell you that wide­outs can have the longest learn­ing curve out of any offen­sive posi­tion. Some guys jump on the express lane right away. Jeudy’s stuck on the local, crawl­ing to the final exit.

“(Sun­day) could be a defin­ing moment in his career,” coach Vic Fan­gio said.

That train’s up in the air now.

Only one guy can catch it.