With Drew Lock side­lined with a shoul­der injury and top wide­out Court­land Sut­ton out for the sea­son with a torn ACL, the onus to jump-start the Bron­cos’ pass­ing attack falls on tight end Noah Fant.

Through his first 18 career games, Denver’s first-round draft pick from 2019 has proven his big-play capa­bil­i­ty. He went through rook­ie grow­ing pains last year (i.e. three drops against Kansas City at home) and quick­ly learned from them. And now, two games into 2020, Fant’s play is back­ing up his pre­sea­son dec­la­ra­tion that he wants to be in the same elite cat­e­go­ry as All-Pro tight ends Travis Kelce and George Kittle.

But for Fant to take on that offen­sive onus, coor­di­na­tor Pat Shur­mur and Bron­cos back­up quar­ter­backs (Jeff Driskel this week, per­haps Blake Bor­tles in com­ing weeks) must keep Fant more con­sis­tent­ly involved.

Case-in-point: Fant’s pro­duc­tion has been explo­sive in two of the four halves the Bron­cos have played so far, and non-exis­tent in the oth­er two.

In Week 1 against Ten­nessee, the for­mer Iowa star went off for five catch­es on five tar­gets, tying a career-high, for 81 yards and a touch­down in the first half. The sec­ond half? As the Bron­cos’ offense sput­tered with four punts in six pos­ses­sions, Fant was silent with zero catch­es on one tar­get that came with 17 sec­onds left. 

“We tried to take advan­tage of some oth­er matchups, which was a good idea,” Fant said after the loss. “I’m sure we’ll get it fig­ured out and keep press­ing for­ward from there.”

While Fant gave the com­pa­ny line, the real talk is this: In that game, with Sut­ton out due to a shoul­der injury, the Bron­cos need­ed to be more aggres­sive with play-calls geared toward their young, explo­sive tight end. It was the same sto­ry in Week 2 when Fant had no tar­gets in the first half but then made his mark in the sec­ond half with four catch­es on five tar­gets for 57 yards and a touch­down plus a two-point con­ver­sion, all off the hand of Driskel.

Driskel, it seems, under­stands who his top tar­get should be.

“Noah is an unbe­liev­able ath­lete who’s a big tar­get out there, he’s dynam­ic with the ball in his hands, and he can make the con­test­ed catch­es,” Driskel said. “He’s done it all for us thus far this year, and we’re kind of expect­ing him to build on that and keep mak­ing plays for this offense.”

Coach Vic Fan­gio said the Bron­cos are “very com­fort­able throw­ing it to him a lot if that’s the best way for us to win.” Throw Fant’s way until the defense proves it can stop him or until the defense’s atten­tion towards the tight end opens up room for the team’s speedy rook­ie wideouts.

Fant ranks fifth among NFL tight ends in receiv­ing yards with 138, but his 15.3 yards per catch aver­age is high­er than the oth­er four tight ends on that list. Per Pro Foot­ball Focus, he’s also the only play­er with a per­fect 158.3 pass­er rat­ing on 10 or more tar­gets this season.

“Noah’s able to open up plays for us,” rook­ie wide­out Jer­ry Jeudy point­ed out. “They’re going to start focus­ing on Noah, so that means more 1‑on‑1 chances for me, KJ (Ham­ler) and the oth­er receivers to get open.”

So far, Fant is on track for 88 tar­gets this year, and that’s not near enough for an offense in need of an every-down receiv­ing threat to emerge.

Shurmur’s game plan should have under­lined, right at the top of his sheet: Feed Noah Fant.