The Broncos managed to come away from their matchup against the Chargers with a crazy, comeback victory, but the team’s overall performance raised more concerns than it resolved.
Without further ado, here are the players that starred and the ones that came up short against the Chargers.
Stock Up
Bryce Callahan: Broncos Country was furious with Bryce Callahan when he was unable to play last year, but they should be singing a very different tune this season. Callahan went from a massive injruy question mark to being the best member of the Denver secondary in 2020.
He has played the third-most coverage snaps of any cornerback who has yet to allow a touchdown. And that’s with him being forced to play outside, where he’s at a huge size mismatch, for most of the season.
Today he had another impressive game, highlighted by an unbelievable interception in the endzone. Without that interception, Denver’s near comeback wouldn’t have been possible.
Jerry Jeudy, K.J. Hamler and Albert Okwuegbunam: The offense largely struggled, but three Broncos rookies on offense had terrific games, in K.J. Hamler, Jerry Jeudy and Albert Okwuegbunam.
Drew Lock finally started to look Jeudy’s way today, and as a result, Jeudy came away with four receptions for 73 yards, easily making it his best game with Lock in the lineup. His 43-yard reception in the second half was one of the major sparks that ignited the Broncos’ comeback attempt.
As opposed to Jeudy, Okwuegbunam has often been targeted by Lock, but he didn’t see the field much on Sunday. He did take advantage of his limited reps though, coming up with his first career touchdown reception, and he did so in fantastic fashion.
K.J. Hamler came up big on the final drive, with two big receptions. One helped the team drive down the field and the other was the walk-off touchdown reception.
Stock Down
Drew Lock: It’s not yet time to be “out” on Drew Lock yet, as he still has nine games left in which he could potentially turn this ship around, but it is not looking good at all.
In his five games last season he was helped out tremendously by running an incredibly simplistic, rudimentary offense and still was merely average or worse for 4-of-5 of those games. Even those average performances now don’t look good enough to compete in the AFC West with how Derek Carr, Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert have played this season.
With that in mind, Lock had to show growth and development this season and he hasn’t shown much of either. Yes, a few areas of his game have become more refined, but one area of his game is markedly better than it was in his first career start against the Chargers?
Lock is getting lapped by the rest of the quarterbacks in the division. And it’s not just the eye test that suggests he isn’t the Broncos’ long-term answer at the game’s most important position, as the best analytics also measure him as one of the league’s very worst starting quarterbacks.
Lock entered this week ranked 34th out of 34 eligible quarterbacks in EPA (expected points added), and out of 32 eligible quarterbacks Lock ranked 27th in DYAR (defense-adjusted yards above replacement), 31st in DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average), and 32nd in both QBR (ESPN’s advanced quarterback rating metric) and EYards (Effective yards).
Those numbers are sure to only get worse after factoring in Lock’s performance this week, which was easily the worst of his career. With six minutes left in the third quarter the offense picked up just its third first-down of the game, and before Lindsay’s 50-yard touchdown scamper late in the third quarter, the offense had gained just 60 total yards.
The offense turned it around down the stretch, but whether or not they were able to come away with the comeback victory wouldn’t have really mattered in the grand scheme of things. With every week that passes, Lock looks more and more like an imposter just waiting to be exposed, and the only exception to that has been the Houston game and the fourth quarter of his performance today. Whether the Broncos are 2-5 or 3-4 isn’t changing that.
Pat Shurmur: Drew Lock wasn’t good but the playcalling didn’t assist him at all.
Far too often did Pat Shurmur call plays that backed his offense into a 3rd-and-long situation, only to call a play targeted well short of the sticks. His playcalling today was one of the most uninspiring performances the Broncos have seen from an offensive coordinator in recent years, and that’s saying something.
For most of the season, the Chargers defense has looked like one of the off-season’s most overhyped units, but the Broncos made them look like 2000 Ravens for the large majority of this game.
The offense has been a total disaster the past two weeks, and the week before that they were unable to convert a single touchdown on six straight drives that ended on New England’s side of the field.
Maybe Shurmur is being held back by Lock, or maybe Lock is holding back Shurmur, but either way, this offense is drowning.