Jerry Jeudy and Drew Lock had their best two games of the season against the lowly Falcons defense in Week 9. The rookie wideout notched seven catches for 125 yards and a score, and Lock put up over 30 fantasy points on his own.
With Lock now fully healthy and Jeudy knocking off some rookie rust, the two are quietly building a nice rapport and they’re growing as a rising QB-WR combo. Lock looked Jeudy’s way 10 times in Week 8 and that total increased to 14 in Week 9. As a result, Jeudy’s fantasy outlook is now reaching weekly starter status, while Lock could be a weekly fill-in off the fantasy waiver wire on a matchup-dependent basis.
While both players started off a bit slow, we were high on both Jeudy and Lock entering this season. Jeudy entered the NFL draft as an elite route runner coming out of Alabama and the most NFL-ready of the loaded receiver class. On the other hand, Lock was handed the keys by John Elway, along with a loaded weapons cabinet.
Although neither has scratched the surface, Jeudy has been on the verge of explosion.
“I think Jeudy’s targets from the start, even with three different quarterbacks this season, have been the good indicator,” said Jeff Legwold, Broncos’ beat reporter. “He leads the team with 61 after eight games, 15 more than tight end Noah Fant. Drew Lock threw an off-balance interception Sunday because he said he would throw to Jeudy in that same situation ’10 out of 10 times.’ So he’s going to see the ball the rest of the way.
“And he’s finding the rhythm in his route running — which is advanced way beyond his years. And where he was pressing in some situations early in the season because he wanted to make a play so badly, he’s now finishing those plays.”
The route running was on display Sunday when he put a poor Falcons’ corner in a blender by putting his hand up faking the go-route, only to stop on a dime for an easy completion and touchdown.
.@jerryjeudy throwing the hand up to sell the Go ball before breaking into the comeback pic.twitter.com/d1anxR24H0
— Receiver School (@ReceiverSchool) November 8, 2020
From the quarterback’s standpoint, Lock has notched back-to-back 25 and 33 point games and has accounted for six total touchdowns in his last two fourth quarters. In Week 9, he completed 25 of 48 passes for a career-high 313 yards and three total touchdowns.
While the Lock may not be the quarterback of the future in Denver, he’s working to unlock Jeudy from a fantasy standpoint. And while I may be a bit biased because I like both players, I think the second-year quarterback can do just that for the remainder of this season.
The Wolf is still a Lock believer himself, ranking him as his QB20 (+6 vs ECR) and Jeudy continues to rise, now at his WR37 (+5 vs ECR) on his Rest of Season Big Board.
