Broncos Training Camp: Day 9 news and notes

The Denver Broncos had a relatively quiet training camp practice on Monday as there wasn’t much news coming out through the media. The big change today was having the first-team units working against the scout-team units with the idea of preparing for Week 1.

“Today was one of those days,” Fangio said. “Today’s work on both sides of the ball was against some things that we’re going to see from early opponents and things that we need to see on both sides of the ball that we don’t get from each other, offense or defense. Today that was the focus. That was planned. We have one or two more of those planned before we get into game week. We’ll do that along the way.”

That kind of focus is what you’d see in the regular preparation for gameday during the regular season. With Week 1 rapidly approaching, these kinds of practice sessions will likely become more common.

Jerry Jeudy is just different

One thing we keep hearing about in training camp is how different rookie first-round wide receiver Jerry Jeudy is. He has made a huge impact already and has earned the respect from the veterans on this team. He is even giving tips to route running to veterans.

“It means a lot,” Jeudy said. “It’s saying that I’m doing something right. Having a veteran that’s been in the league four, five, six, eight, 10 years asking me how I do certain things is really exciting because I’m trying to be in the same spot they’re in and they’re asking me tips from my game. It’s exciting and I’m very humbled.”

It all adds up to Jeudy being a different kind of rookie.

What Jeudy does best is work on his craft every chance he gets. That all started from his years playing high school ball with Calvin Ridley.

“My first year playing football, I wasn’t that good,” Jeudy said. “I watched a lot of YouTube videos, a lot of highlights and I played with one of best receivers in the NFL right now in [Falcons WR] Calvin Ridley in high school. Having him around in high school helped me become a better wide receiver, too. Learning from him, he taught me a lot of things also.”

No games have been played yet, but it certainly looks like the Broncos are going to have a fantastic 1-2 punch between Courtland Sutton and Jeudy in 2020.

News and Notes

• Justin Hollins saw some reps at ILB as the team adjusts to the loss of Justin Strnad for the season and Todd Davis for another week or two.
• Bryce Callahan confirmed his foot is 100% good to go and he’s feeling back to the way he was pre-injury.
• DenverBroncos.com noted how practice ended with a four-minute drill that Drew Lock won on a pass to Nick Vannet for the go-ahead touchdown.
• Lloyd Cushenberry received most of the first-team reps at center today, but it was pretty evenly split with Patrick Morris and Austin Schlottmann as well.

Injury Report

• A slew of Broncos missed practice with various injuries: KJ Hamler, Juwann Winfree, Michael Ojemudia, Alijah Holder, Justin Strnad, De’Vante Bausby, Todd Davis, Malik Carney, Tim Patrick, Austin Fort, and Mike Purcell.
• News broke during practice that rookie ILB Justin Strnad is done for the year after having surgery on his wrist.
• Melvin Gordon (ribs) did return to practice on Monday.

Broncos camp tweets

Quotables

Vic Fangio on whether due to the lack of the offseason program he expected that there would be several soft tissue injuries

“No, because already this year practicing less than we practiced a year ago at this time, we have more than we had the entire season last year. So no, I was not expecting that. I think there were some flaws in the way we set up the acclimation period along with the other stuff. It doesn’t do anybody any good to whine about it now. We just have to adjust and improvise and react to it, which we did. Today we altered practice. That wasn’t the planned practice that we had today. That was a practice we were going to do later in the week. We did it today instead. We’ll see how we came out of that. What we exactly do tomorrow will be a product of what I think we need to do. I did know we were going to have to do some adjusting as we go. Today was an example of that.”

Vic Fangio on how challenging it has been to balance training camp work and getting the team ready to play its first game in three weeks

“It’s a fine line that we constantly have to juggle every day because as you said we’re under different circumstances, no preseason games, yet as you alluded to three weeks until we’re kicking it off. We have to push the envelope as much as we can but always being ready to adjust if we need to like we did today.”

Vic Fangio on if he has to adjust his approach to the way he teaches the defense this year

“You do. At first—comparing this to the lockout year which that year we were a totally new staff where I was. We hadn’t even met our players until training camp, but we had a normal training camp with preseason games and the length. We put a lot in because we wanted to expose our players to it in case we needed it and also it was a way for us to learn our players. I think along the same lines here we don’t want to not put something in that we think is valuable, although it might be cumbersome to learn in the short amount of time that we do have available. I do think because the camp is shorter with no preseason games that we’re going to have to find the midground there between what I explained with the lockout year and this year. Yes, we’re going to have to be able to execute what we do which may mean we cut back, but we also I think have to push the envelope and if we feel something’s important to have schematically that we’re able to do it.”

Bryce Callahan on his expectations of the defense in Year 2

“For Year 2, a lot of guys pick up the scheme better and we’re able to do more advanced stuff that maybe we weren’t able to last year. Just the knowledge of the defense and people understanding how it’s working will help in the spike in the play of the defense.”

Jerry Jeudy on how QB Drew Lock has helped his development and Drew’s presence in the huddle

“Drew Lock helped a lot during the offseason. We’ll step out and he’ll throw some routes to some of the guys. He’s a great leader. He’s a guy that leads by example. Not really talkative—he’ll talk when he needs to. When he talks, everybody listens. That’s the type of guy that you need on your team—that does everything by their actions.”