The list of players back in action continues to grow as the Broncos near their second home game of the preseason. Darrell Jackson — who sat out the game against Dallas — and Josh Barrett rejoined practice a day after Champ Bailey, Louis Green and Tom Nalen all donned jerseys and pads again.
Hamza Abdullah, Boss Bailey and Daniel Graham remained out of pads.
The offense and defense each worked on individual drills before combining for 11-on-11 drills aimed at preparing for the Packers.
During WR vs. DB one-on-ones, several matchups stood out. First, with Jack Williams lining up against Samie Parker, Parker ran deep and Williams stayed with him the whole way, located the ball and swatted it away.
Next, Champ stood opposite Keary Colbert and knocked the ball out of his hands, prompting a, “Good battle!” from Defensive Backs Coach Ronnie Bradford.
Brandon Stokley and Dre’ Bly provided the most entertaining matchup of the drill. On a route up the middle, Jay Cutler fired a pass toward Stokley, but Bly lept straight in the air and just got his hands on the ball. It skipped off his fingertips, however, and into the waiting hands of Stokley, who stood still and let out a quick laugh while Bly laid on the grass staring at him. They both laughed as Stokley helped the cornerback up and gave him a quick five.
Eddie Royal looks to be gaining more and more confidence after starting the first two games of the preseason. Royal caught virtually every ball thrown his way, including a one-on-one matchup with Champ where he shook free and ran back to a pass on a quick turnaround. The one pass he missed was a little fast and over his head, but he made up for it toward the end of the session when he ran under a long bomb that had the rest of the offense “Ooooh”ing.
Nate Webster lined up at the middle linebacker position with the first unit defense during 11-on-11s, with D.J. Williams and Jamie Winborn on either side. The defensive line was still John Engelberger, Dewayne Robertson, Marcus Thomas and Elvis Dumervil, and the secondary was Bailey, Bly, Marlon McCree and Marquand Manuel.
The offensive first unit was the same as in the Dallas game, with Royal lining up opposite Brandon Marshall at the wide out position. Casey Wiegmann continued getting reps with the first unit while Nalen is getting back into practice.
Two plays stood out in 11-on-11s. One was a tipped ball by the defense that Bly came up with and took a few yards the other way before taking a knee. The other was a long ball to the corner of the endzone from Darrell Hackney. Champ Bailey had outrun his receiver and looked like he was going to come up with the catch, but it fell through his arms. Cornerback Domonique Foxworth heckled the quarterback, “If Champ can’t catch it, it’s a bad ball, Hack. That’s the rules around here.”
Matt Prater was seven for eight on field goals during practice. His first kicks were from just inside 40 yards, and he made all of his kicks up to a 53-yarder. Then he lined up for a 55-yarder that was wide left — his one miss of the practice — but Head Coach Mike Shanahan blew his whistle and the play was run again, this time with Cutler as the holder. Prater split the uprights on his second attempt from 55 yards.
Speaking of Prater, when he was practicing field goals earlier in the session by kicking through two sets of uprights, two kicks found its way directly into Andre Hall’s windshield. Hall said after practice he’s not planning on parking in the first row of spots anymore.
After practice, Royal, Glenn Martinez, Marquay McDaniel and Tyrone Poole worked on catching punts from the JUGS machine. Special Teams Coordinator Scott O’Brien watched as the players had to catch four punts, but after the first two they had to throw one of the balls in the air before they caught the next one, then catch the thrown ball as it came back down. Sound complicated? It looked that way, as Poole was the only player who managed to catch all four, then went for a fifth, exclaiming, “This pressure ain’t nothing. I’ve been to a Super Bowl.”
Now for a few pictures:
-Gray Caldwell, DenverBroncos.com
Tags: Brandon Stokley, Champ Bailey, Dre Bly, Eddie Royal, Gray Caldwell, Jack Williams, Jay Cutler, Matt Prater, Practice
When Andrew Mason was let go I was extremely worried about the coverage we’d get during Broncos training camp and other events. So far I’ve been extremely impressed on how well you all have done. I think I can safely say that most Bronco fans really appreciate the work that you guys have done covering everything this off season. Great pictures as always and good information.
Thanks and keep up the good work!
Grey, thanks again for the G R E A T coverage, you guys are all 1st rate! Additionally, can you give any insights on what’s up w/Samie Parker? Geesh…the guy has speed, athleticism, good hands, yet he seems to get little press. Sometimes that can be good, but sometimes, not so much. Is he going to make this team or not? Thoughts?
I read Andrew Mason for years and he was the best source for info on the Broncos during the off season. When the regular season is going on I tend to get most of my own info from watching games and national websites.
That could change with these guys! Really solid stuff and us true Bronco fans will eat this stuff up…..I check this site at least 10 times a day for updates.
One thing I find strange is that we were informed that Andrew Mason was let go because of cutbacks in the budget. So were Grey and Adam already on the staff or were they hired on?
How does Manuel look with the first team D???
Botan–
Thanks as always for your comments. We’re certainly trying to give all of you every bit of information we can. Always glad to hear when you’re liking what we’re doing.
HOGblog–
Thanks. With the emergence of Eddie Royal out of the draft, the acquisitions of Darrell Jackson and Keary Colbert through free agency, the veteran leadership of Brandon Stokley and the star power of Brandon Marshall, Samie Parker sometimes gets less of the media attention than some of the other guys. Regardless, Parker performed in training camp and he’s gotten time in both preseason games. As far as whether he’ll make the team, just like with probably 80 percent of the roster, we pretty much have no idea. That’s ultimately up to the coaches and we’ll know in the next couple weeks as final cuts are looming.
Dr. Doom–
Marquand Manuel has been playing well alongside Marlon McCree as the first team safeties. After almost every play, even in practice, Manuel is the player jumping out of the pile and shouting, “Let’s go!” getting the defense fired up. He seems to provide a little extra spirit in the secondary and after playing on several teams in the NFL he provides some veteran leadership as well. We’ll see how the depth chart plays out as the season approaches.
Thanks for the comments and questions, keep them coming!
-Gray Caldwell
Can you give us a little more insight on how the Defensive Line is fairing agasint the O
mikew007-
To answer your question, Gray, Adam Zinser and Jake Grilley joined us before OTA’s and will be with us for the season. I will echo your comments in saying that they are doing a tremendous job!
I really like this Jack Williams kid! Does he remind anyone else of Darrent Williams? I mean he is a smaller corner like Darrent, real quick, and seems to have a great attitude. Hopefully he pans out to be like him and he makes the team! Cmon Manuel get the start and lets boot that bum Hamza off the team! You cant be a horrible tackler last year and sit out the whole pre-season and make the team can you? He can take himself and that life threatening groin injury to another team hopefully, lets cross our fingers. That way we can make room for guys like Jack Williams, Wesley Woodyard, and Alrige!
Thanks for keeping us fans that live away from denver updated man!
does anybody know the extra stuff the comish. wants b-marsh to do to get the thee game suspension reduced to two games?
does anyone know a good online sports streaming website that people can watch broncos games on that are legit? I live in new mexico and cant watch the game on friday, there are a bunch of online sites that you can pay for, but i dont know which ones are legit.
Jack Williams’ play stands out to me from this post. Dre’ Bly will always have to be at his best if he wants to prevent Jack from taking away his playing time. In any case, this is excellent as it manifests that the Broncos are getting healthy competition among themselves and this should do nothing but benefit the team. Eddie Royal is the man, likewise for Dumervil. I really want to see Dewayne Robertson be a force on the defensive line. With studs like the aforementioned Dumervil, Jarvis Moss, Marcus Thomas and Robertson, perhaps we can get some much-needed pressure on the quarterback this season. Nice work Broncos, as always, I’m impressed!
jazzyfrizzle,
As of now, the only legal way of viewing every out-of-market game
within the U.S. is through the DirecTV package. If you have an IP address outside of the U.S., Yahoo has a pay service that lets you view all of the games in HD streaming online. Aside from that, there’s alwas the local sports bar.
Now, it is true that there are some illegal methods of watching the games online. But this, the official team website, is hardly the place to discuss them. You can probably find some other message boards where such discussion would be a little less inappropriate.