A sentence we didn’t think we’d be typing before Week 13 of an NFL season: If you started Tim Patrick instead of Tyreek Hill on your fantasy team, brother, you’re positively golden.
“Tim has been Tim this whole year,” Broncos quarterback Drew Lock said of Patrick, the Denver wide receiver who caught two touchdowns — the speedy Hill finished with none — during a 22-16 loss at Kansas City on Sunday night. “Mr. Reliable. Mr. Consistent. Always there for you, whenever you need him.”
Whenever Lock needed No. 81 in a pinch at Arrowhead Stadium, Patrick usually obliged. The 6-foot-4 wideout’s two-touchdown evening was his first multi-score contest as a pro. His four catches amounted to 44 yards, but three of those grabs either put the Broncos in the end zone or set them up nicely in Chiefs territory.
“(Lock and I) just make it simple,” said Patrick, the former Utah Utes standout who was pressed into WR1 duty after Courtland Sutton was lost for the season in Week 2.
“He throws the ball, I catch it. Simple as that. If the ball comes my way, make a play. Sometimes he makes me look good. Sometimes, I make him look good.”
The pair both looked good while hooking up for the Broncos’ two touchdowns, another example of the chemistry formed over the course of 2020’s pandemic. The first, in which Patrick essentially lined up like a tight end or blocking back and turned a short dump-off into a 5-yard score, gave Denver its first lead of the tilt.
If the first red-zone connection between Lock and Patrick was about execution, the second was for the highlight reel.
With the Broncos trailing 12-10 at the Chiefs’ 10-yard-line late in the third quarter, Lock threw a high fade into the short left corner of the end zone on first down. The placement was perfect, with enough air underneath for Patrick to fight off Kansas City cornerback Bashaud Breeland and secure the ball cleanly as the two scurried out of bounds.
Patrick knew he’d gotten both toes down, with control, before rolling out of the end zone, even as the field judge immediately ruled the Broncos wideout out of bounds.
The Denver receiver appealed passionately, even pointing to the spots on the turf where his toes had scraped the grass. The line judge came over to affirm it was a catch, and the field judge quickly reversed his initial call.
Television replays showed Patrick’s version of events — one toe in, then another — to be right on the ball. And his body control to be positively balletic.
“It was just a fade,” Patrick explained. “It was a run play, but we knew if they went man we’d try a back-side fade. He was going to give me a chance if it was man and that was what happened.”
Which led a reporter to ask during the postgame Zoom call with the media: Best catch ever?
“As far as touchdowns?” Patrick replied with a quizzical tone.
It’s gotta be close to the top, right?
“Nah,” Patrick said with a grin. “It’s not.”
It was still pretty sweet, though. Especially on a night that left Broncos fans with a sour taste, again, after a two-touchdown, two-interception stat line from Lock.
“(Lock) responded like we knew he was going to respond,” Patrick said of his signal-caller, who’s now 7-7 as an NFL starter. “He’s a big-time playmaker, a big-time leader, he’s a big-time quarterback. And not for one second did we (think) we were going to lose that game. Because we knew they couldn’t stop us. We just came up short (Sunday).”
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