Monday closed out with a quick practice under a nice cloud cover that made things pretty comfortable. There wasn’t much sweat to be had as players jogged through their respective plays — the one-tough-practice-a-day philosophy has veterans and rookies alike praising Head Coach Mike Shanahan’s forethought, as the players think it’s saving them tons of energy for when game time comes along.
As always, here are some quick hits.
ATTENDANCE REPORT: The usual suspects watched the jog-through practice from the sidelines — veterans such as Ebenezer Ekuban, Darrell Jackson and Brandon Stokley…The out of pads list remained the same as this morning, with the addition of Peyton Hillis, who didn’t dress out for the afternoon practice…Montrae Holland dressed out for the jog-through.
POSTURING FOR POSITION: Nate Webster ran through the defensive plays with the first unit after being placed first on the depth chart at the middle linebacker position this morning.
Six players took turns fielding kickoffs — Anthony Alridge, Andre Hall, Glenn Martinez, Michael Pittman, Eddie Royal and Clifford Russell. Eddie Royal is listed as the first kick and punt returner on the depth chart.
FOCAL POINTS: The team took part in the typical jog-through, the defense running plays against its scout team and the offense doing the same on the opposite practice field. The special teams also got involved, working on kickoff coverage.
TAKE AWAYS: You can see some pretty odd matchups during jog-throughs, since the defense is on one field and the offense is on the other. At one point during the afternoon, if you looked on the far field you could see center Kory Lichtensteiger playing what looked to be a linebacker in coverage, and on the field closest to the fans linebacker Spencer Larsen was lined up at receiver.
- Punters Brett Kern and Sam Paulescu spent a good amount of practice on one knee, practicing taking snaps and putting down the hold for field goals.
- Alvin McKinley, the 6-foot-3, 294-pound defensive tackle, had grown pretty familiar to fans with his unmistakable look — long braids and a full beard. Today McKinley was still sporting his luscious beard, but his locks were chopped off. Maybe he’s going for the aerodynamic look on the field.
QUOTABLE: “You get tired of beating up on your teammates, going against them every day. I’m looking forward to some new meat — fresh blood.”
-Nate Webster, on getting excited for the first preseason game this weekend.
-Gray Caldwell, DenverBroncos.com
Tags: Alvin McKinley, Gray Caldwell, Jog-Through, Nate Webster, Training Camp
Hey Gray,
How did the two punters do today? Anybody seem to have the edge?
Selvin Young better watch it, he’s going to get fined from the NFL =P
where can we find the actuall depth chart for the whole team, for pre-season game 1?
If you go back a couple blogs, we made a post on the depth chart being released. The link is in there. Also, you can just go to our homepage and click to the depth chart from there — it’s toward the top right of the page.
-Gray
Kyle, It’s been reported that Demetrin Veal is working out @ Dove Valley, in another field adjacent to the regulary practice fields. Says he’s hungry to play,and his weight is up to 300lbs now. As he played well for us in the prototypical 8 man in the box formation in 05/06, might we be about to sign him to a DL spot vacated by Carlton Powell? Thoughts?
HOGblog- Right now the team is at the roster limit, so in order to sign anyone we would have to release a player. Our pro scouting department is constantly evaluating players across the league and free agents. If they and our coaches deem that they need some help, they will get the best guy available. Weather that is Veal or not, I am not sure. It is interesting that he is working out so close to the facility. Also, I will say that everything that we have heard is that the coaches are very happy with the play of the d-line thus far. I am sure a lot of questions will be answered when the lights go on Saturday night in Houston.
Kyle