On a beautiful day in South Florida, the AFC squad took the field first on the opening day of practice for the 2010 Pro Bowl.
It was a day that was just as much about getting acquainted with new teammates as running drills, and the loose session included plenty of laughs. Some of the loudest came from Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco, who not surprisingly spent much of the morning trying to get a rise out of the crowd of high schoolers who watched the practice at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
At times it almost looked like a regular Broncos practice, as five Denver players took the field — Champ Bailey, Ryan Clady, Brian Dawkins, Elvis Dumervil and Brandon Marshall. It was a typical affair, as Bailey matched up against Marshall plenty of times, and Clady found himself blocking Dumervil on a number of occasions.
Some of the odder sights of the day came on special teams. First, Marshall dropped back to field a few punts — nothing too out of the ordinary — except the kicks were coming from Ochocinco. Later, Marshall took a few turns at long snapper, sending the ball back to Baltimore running back Ray Rice, who punted a couple deep balls. Some of the blockers on the punt team included Dumervil, Dawkins and Titans quarterback Vince Young.
If any Broncos fans were in attendance, things might have seemed a little backwards. Clady took his snaps as the starting right tackle, as Cleveland’s Joe Thomas lined up at left tackle. The reasoning? Most likely the fact that Thomas has been elected to the Pro Bowl in each of his first three seasons in the league — he gets to exercise a bit of seniority.
So while the practice was about joking around with some of the AFC’s best, Bailey said he knows the group will get down to business as Sunday approaches.
“You want to come out here, have some fun and take advatange of the opportunity to play with some of these elite guys, guys you watch throughout the league,” Bailey said. “It’s a good thing to build camaraderie and build relationships, but at the same time we want to win.”
-Gray Caldwell, DenverBroncos.com
Here are more photos from the opening practice session:
For more photos of Wednesday’s action, check out the photo gallery.
Tags: Brandon Marshall, Brian Dawkins, Champ Bailey, Elvis Dumervil, Pro Bowl, Ryan Clady
A bit off subject, I bet Bowlen is hoping we draw the 11th pick so we are off the most expensive top ten chart.
There are four guys that could go in the first round.
Suh
Williams
McCoy
Cody
everyone but williams is a DT type of guy.
Now all four of those guys won’t go before us.
To have a successful draft we will have to address our O line and D line needs in free agency/trades. I say sign Marshall, which I think we will. Only the media has made any statements about us trading him, no one from the Bronco’s organization has made any statement to hint we will trade him, and we all know from last offseason the media doesn’t know sh#%. Anyhow, we can trade Sheffler and some other linemen for additional picks in the draft and pick up D and O line needs in free agency. Its impossible to get lineman in the draft, on either side of the ball, and have them be effective in their first year. Only freaks like Clady can do that. Hopefully after free agency and trades we will have the line needs covered and are sitting with four to five picks in the first three rounds. This way we can focus on widereceiver and secondary depth in the draft, and maybe even a QB.
I know McD has done some things that make us scratch our heads at times, but he has also done some great things as well. Remember he kicked a$$ in free agency last year, and our draft was pretty good. This guy learned how to work the draft from one of the best. I think we will do even better in it this year.
Go Broncos!!
Forgot one.
Brian Price UCLA
Only two of them should go before us, the nebraska and the oklahoma guys, the other two should be there well after we pick which makes it a tough decision, which is why people see us picking McClain.
Price would be a beter pick as a DE.
rebelbronco, I love your enthusiasm about trading “some other linemen” for picks. LOL. You think more of them than I do…
It will be tough, but I was mainly hoping we get a second or third round pick for Scheffler, and just trade some O line for O line. Whishfull thinking LOL
I mean wishful
I hope we take McClain with our first pick. Then we can put DJ back outside to complement Dumm on the otherside.
Here is my suggestion for first 3 rounds:
1st – Rolando McClain – ILB Alabama
2nd – Maurkice Pouncey – OG/C Florida
3rd – Toby Gerhart – RB Stanford
I think the first could happen but the latter two are just wishful thinking
Love the Gerhart pick. Maybe put him up to second round. I don’t know if he will last that long, but Pouncey might be around in the third
Power RB isnt important enough in my book for 2nd pick…even 3rd…maybe 4th.
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