Film Room: Examining the Truth Behind Broncos WR Jerry Jeudy's Dropped Passes
In the world of football, there might not be anything more maddening than a dropped pass, especially one made to a wide-open receiver with room to run. Jerry Jeudy knows all too well just how frustrating those plays can be in the wake of his rookie campaign with the Denver Broncos.
Last season, the rookie Jeudy had a drop rate of 17.6% which was the highest percentage of any receiver with at least 100 targets. He also only caught 76.5% of his catchable passes, again the worst number in the league last season. Not great for a player selected with the No. 15 overall draft pick and coming into a season with incredibly high expectations.
While it was frustrating to see Jeudy struggle with consistency catching the ball, there is a lot more context to those drops than the raw statistical data can explain. Not all drops are created equal, and some could even see blame placed at the feet of the quarterback when examining them on the game film.
Timing of the throw, ball placement, and even coverage defenders can all have an effect on whether the ball can or should be caught. Most people have a simple expectation when it comes to wide receiver play. If the ball hits your hands, you should catch it. Plain and simple.
But something most people don’t take into consideration are things like defender physicality, ball placement, or just plain and simple lack of concentration. These players are humans, and nobody can be perfect on every single play. Neither are the circumstances that come with each and every passing attempt.
Mind you, Jeudy had a lot of issues stemming from his play alone so he can’t be acquitted for his woes. However, he wasn’t nearly as bad as the raw data would lead you to believe.
A big reason for his high drop percentage stems from his five-drop campaign against the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 16. It was most definitely his worst performance of the season and one of the worst receiving days the Broncos have had since Demaryius Thomas only caught one of his 13 total targets and dropped a handful of passes against the New England Patriots back in 2015.
Even so, one bad performance does not define an entire season. Jeudy was credited with 12 total drops last year, meaning that if you take out that horrendous Week 16 performance, he had seven total drops in the remaining 15 games. He also had an 11-week stretch without dropping a single pass.
In today’s film room, we are going to take a look at a handful of drops credited to Jeudy from last season to understand what went wrong, who was at most fault for the incompletion, and how these plays can be corrected in 2021. Let’s hit the tape.
Play 1: Lack of Concentration | Week 1 vs. Tennessee
Coming out of the half with the game tied, the Broncos face a quick third down on their opening possession. Jeudy is lined up in the slot and runs a nice dig route, creating a couple of yards of separation. QB Drew Lock puts this ball directly on Jeudy’s chest plate in perfect placement and timing, but Jeudy lets it go right through his hands.
This is a typical lapse of concentration by Jeudy. One of the best aspects of Jeudy’s game is his ability to create explosive plays after the catch, which appears to be what he is trying to do here. On the replay, you can see Jeudy turn his head to look for a running lane before he secures the catch, a cardinal sin for a receiver.
Make sure you complete the reception, have some patience, then make your move. A simple adjustment to make, but a necessary one. There are a handful of other plays where Jeudy makes this same mistake but gets away with it.
Play 2: Bracing for Contact | Week 15 vs. Buffalo
Here against the Bills, Jeudy runs a nice blaze-out route against what appears to be Cover 2. He creates some nice separation on the route, but settles down just a little bit too late and carries his momentum into the window of the next defender.
This throw is just a touch late coming from Lock, but the placement is nice and Jeudy should make this play. But he knows he is about to take a shot to the chops as he makes the catch.
In the broadcast replay, Jeudy's eyes appear closed right as the ball squeaks through his arms. He is bracing for the hit he knows is coming, and forgets the first rule of being a receiver in actually making the catch.
Sometimes, multiple things can be true at the same time. Should Jeudy have made this play? Sure. It was a catchable ball and went right through his hands. But this is also a fault of Lock, who leads his receiver into a certain collision.
Lock tried to force a tight window throw into double coverage. While the placement was nice, Lock could have done a better job of protecting his playmaker. More work on timing and continuity within the system should help with plays like this.
Play 3: Not Quite on Target | Week 2 at Pittsburgh
Against Pittsburgh in Week 2, Jeudy had a rough game as he had a pair of drops. This was the second of the two, and probably the one Jeudy really wants to have back.
Right at the snap, Pittsburgh brings a cornerback on the blitz right in front of Jeudy, and he recognizes it immediately. However, backup QB Jeff Driskel and the offensive line don’t, leaving an unblocked pass rusher coming off the edge. Jeudy breaks into the vacated window on a slant route, coming wide open.
The fault of this drop lands at the feet of Driskel, who makes an off-target throw coming from his back foot. The placement makes Jeudy have to jump and overextend his arms to make a play on the ball.
It does hit him in the hands and he should make this play as he develops, but it’s hard to fault the rookie for this play given the difficulty of the catch. If this play is made, Jeudy would have made a nice gain on first down and could have slipped a tackle to make an explosive play.
Play 4: Catch First, Feet Second | Week 16 at Chargers
Again, the general rule of thumb for any receiver is first to ensure you complete the catch before you focus on anything else. Here, Jeudy once again fails to do so as he is approaching the sideline against the Chargers in Week 16.
Jeudy gets a favorable matchup in man coverage at the top of the screen and absolutely torches his defender on the corner route. This is simple pitch and catch, and Lock couldn’t have walked out to Jeudy and handed him the football any nicer than this ball placement.
This drop is purely on Jeudy, who is really focusing on getting his feet down in the corner of the end zone. This ball hits him squarely in the palm of his left hand, and Jeudy is unable to reel it in.
You can’t score touchdowns without catching the ball first. That has to be the first focus. Worry about your footwork once you secure the catch.
Play 5: Stronger Hands | Week 2 at Pittsburgh
Our last play is going back to the Pittsburgh game to highlight having to make a contested catch as the defender is slapping at your hands. Here, Jeudy has a crossing route in which he creates some decent separation. The Pittsburgh linebacker sits in his hook zone, and as Jeudy crosses behind him Lock fires a laser that ends up being slightly behind the receiver.
Watch the safety crashing down here. That’s All-World safety Minkah Fitzpatrick, and he recovers incredibly well after being burned coming across the middle of the field. If this ball is out in front of Jeudy, this turns into a huge gain on the first possession of the game.
What went wrong here is quite simply the placement of the pass, but something Jeudy can work on is his hand strength. He gets both hands on the ball, but it gets ripped away by the defender.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a heck of a play by Fitzpatrick and at no fault of Jeudy, but controlling the ball in a tight window and not allow defenders to rip it out of his hands is something he can work on.
Bottom Line
The recurring theme surrounding most of these drops is making sure that you first secure the catch before making a secondary move. Jeudy does have those mistakes all over his game tape, and not solely on plays where he dropped the ball. Having a split-second of patience to ensure that the play is made at quite literally the most critical point has to be the focus for this promising young receiver.
But as we just saw, not every drop is at the fault of the receiver. Missing a target by a mere six inches can have drastic effects on the outcome of a play. Velocity of the throw, defenders, timing, and several other factors not often thought about can turn a big play into one that couldn’t be made.
One thing that we need to understand is that drops are incredibly volatile and predicting when or how they are going to come is impossible. A receiver might just have a bad day, similarly to Jeudy’s debacle in Week 16 last season.
A quarterback might lead a player into a certain collision, causing the incompletion while also trying to make a play. Or a defender could make a nice play in his own right and rip the ball away at the last second.
Just because Jeudy had 12 drops last season doesn’t mean that he is going to repeat that performance this year. Several receivers have had anomaly seasons like that, only to bounce back to form and have a tremendous season or career after that.
There are myriad factors that go into dropped passes that need to be examined properly before judgment should be passed. Hopefully, this film session helped in understanding that.
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