Five Raiders defensive players piled on Broncos wide receiver Demaryius Thomas, their collective weight eventually bringing him to the ground after a 17-yard completion late in the second quarter of last Sunday’s game at Sports Authority Field at Mile High.

The strike up the middle from quarterback Brock Osweiler offered a stamp on Thomas’ recovery.

Yes, he had dropped passes earlier in the season. Yes, he admitted he was “over-thinking” on them. And, yes, they often came on crucial, potentially game-changing downs.

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But that was the past. The 17-yard grab against Oakland put the Broncos at the 2-yard line and gave him 74 yards receiving at that point. Thomas, the wideout previously plagued by dropped passes and that 1 reception in 13 targets against New England, was back.

Until … he wasn’t.

Two plays later a perfectly placed pass slipped through his hands at the goal line.

Two quarters later he watched another pass slide through his fingers on a third down in the Broncos’ 15-12 loss to Oakland. That play was later overshadowed when tight end Vernon Davis followed with an even bigger drop, on a fourth-and-5 play with nary a defender in sight.

“Those are the guys that have to make plays for you if you’re going to be successful,” Broncos coach Gary Kubiak said. “Sometimes it’s confidence when it happens once or twice, and you start thinking about it. As a coach, I have to get them to where they’re making those plays from a confidence level.”

“Back to the basics”

Through 13 games, Thomas has 1,067 yards receiving for his fourth consecutive season with more than 1,000 yards. He continues to climb the ranks of the Broncos’ all-time lists, and he leads the team this season with 88 catches and 82.1 yards per game.

But he also is tied for the NFL lead in dropped passes with nine (6.3 percent of the balls targeted for him.) The Broncos, collectively, have 22 drops this season (4.5 percent), tied for seventh-most in the NFL, according to Stats LLC.

The issue is one Thomas faced last season too, before the bye week. But it’s one he hasn’t been able to shake this season.

The question now is how can the problem be solved? How does a player who was handed a five-year, $70 million contract during the offseason go back to playing with the confidence and consistency that landed him that contract? How does he replicate his work at practices in games, under the lights and with some 70,000 fans screaming?

Receivers past and present have dealt with such issues at some point in their careers.

“I had one point in my career where I struggled for a few games, and it was just getting back to the basics,” said Brandon Stokley, a former Bronco and 15-year receiver who was a teammate of Thomas’ in 2012. “Getting back to just catching a lot of footballs, almost like elementary school. Making sure on every catch you’re looking the football in and then you’re tucking it away.”

Stokley turned to the Jugs football passing machine after practices when he was in a slump, fielding ball after ball after ball. He started over, his mind in the state of a young receiver as he relearned and remastered his technique.

Shannon Sharpe, a former Bronco and Hall of Fame tight end, took a similar approach.

“The biggest thing for me, when it happened, I looked to see what caused the drops,” Sharpe said. “Usually you are trying to do too much. If the pass is meant for 8 yards, take the 8 yards. Don’t think, ‘If I try to spin here, I can get 15 or 20.’ Sometimes the journey is over at 8 yards.

“You look at the tape, see where your hands were, where your head was, then spend some more time on the Jugs machine. He needs to realize he’s an all-pro for a reason.”

“It was so in my head”

Joel Dreessen, a former tight end who played under Kubiak for five seasons (2007-11) in Houston before playing two seasons in Denver, took more dramatic measures. During training camp in 2010 with the Texans, Dreessen went on a streak when he seemed to drop a pass every day.

“It was so in my head,” Dreessen said. “I was literally frightened to take the football field because I didn’t want to go out there and fail again. I had coaches noticing and general managers were even commenting, ‘Hey, you’d better start catching the dang ball.’ I remember Coach Kubiak one day at practice, he was holding the script for the plays that we were running at practice, and he throws it on the ground and goes, ‘Catch the (expletive) ball, Joel!’ It was terrible.”

Dreessen sought the advice of a sports psychologist, who gave him breathing exercises to lower his heart rate and to keep his palms from sweating. Mental tools helped stave off fear and extinguish self-doubt before and during games. Then he, too, made the Broncos’ Jugs machine a loyal companion.

“I wore out gloves because I caught so many passes,” he said. “But it’s just not the same as being in the game, having full game speed and all the distractions that come with trying to do it when the lights are on. There’s just no replicating that.”

After the loss to Oakland, Thomas stood by his locker to field another round of the same, monotonous questions about his mistakes and missed opportunities. His answers often mirrored the ones he offered earlier in the season as he searched for logic where none appeared.

“It’s just stuff we’ve got to go back to the drawing table, stay after to catch more,” he said.

For Thomas, the treatment to break out of a slump might differ. The methods might change. But the recovery can be quick once his confidence returns.

“He just needs one good game where he catches everything thrown his way, where he makes those amazing acrobatic catches that we’ve seen him make,” Dreessen said. “And, most important, he needs to go do it in crunchtime to get his confidence. One game will bust him out of the slump.”

Nicki Jhabvala: njhabvala@denverpost.com or @NickiJhabvala

Dropping the ball

Demaryius Thomas’ total dropped passes and drop rates year to year in the NFL:

SEASON DROPS DROP % 2015 9 6.3% 2014 10 5.4% 2013 8 5.6% 2012 10 7.1% 2011 6 8.7% 2010 2 5.1%

Butterfingers

NFL players with the most dropped passes this season:

PLAYER TEAM TARGETS RECEPTIONS (%) DROPS (%) Amari Cooper Raiders 113 62 (54.9) 9 (8.0) Demaryius Thomas Broncos 144 88 (61.1) 9 (6.3) Ted Ginn Jr. Panthers 79 37 (46.8) 8 (10.1) Julian Edelman Patriots 88 61 (69.3) 8 (9.1) Brandon Marshall Jets 140 89 (63.6) 8 (5.7) Leonard Hankerson Falcons* 46 26 (56.5) 8 (17.4) Mike Evans Buccaneers 114 57 (50.0) 8 (7.0) Jeremy Langford Bears 47 21 (56.8) 7 (18.9)

*Claimed by Patriots on Wednesday