After a three game absence, it looks like the Broncos Pro Bowl cornerback is set to make his return.
Champ Bailey has missed the last three games with a hamstring injury. His progress has been steady and deliberate as he made the trips to both Tennessee and Green Bay over the last two weeks, but did not play in the contests.
However, he participated fully in practice Wednesday for the first time since he injured his hamstring in the Week 1 game against the Oakland Raiders, and Head Coach John Fox sounded optimistic that Bailey will be on the field when the Broncos take on the Chargers in a divisional matchup this week at Sports Authority Field at Mile High.
“Anytime you’ve got a 10-time Pro Bowler that’s on the shelf or not on the buffet, it’s good to have him back,” Fox said. “To have (him) back in the lineup obviously makes the coach smile a little bit. He’ll definitely help us in the pass defense area.”
While the team has embraced Fox’s “next-man up” mentality, the players are happy to see the return of a teammate that can anchor the defense.
“You can’t really explain it,” defensive lineman Robert Ayers said. “He’s a great player, a great leader — he leads by example. He’s one of those guys that makes very few mistakes. He’s a great guy to have out there. It means a lot to us, and having everybody back means a lot.”
INJURY REPORT
Here is Denver’s injury report for Wednesday’s practice.
Demaryius Thomas (finger), Julius Thomas (ankle), Eddie Royal (groin), Jonathan Wilhite (illness), Daniel Fells (knee) and Brian Dawkins (ankle) did not practice. Champ Bailey (hamstring), Marcus Thomas (groin) and Knowshon Moreno (hamstring) participated fully in practice.
For San Diego: Luis Castillo (tibia), Jacques Cesaire (knee), Antonio Gates (foot), Nick Hardwick (neck) and Vincent Jackson (hamstring) did not practice. Quentin Jammer (hamstring) participated in full.
Below are some pictures from Wednesday’s practice.
-Kenny Legan
Tags: Champ Bailey, Week 5
So one question to stir things up again……If the Dolphins offered us a first round pick for Tebow or a couple seconds would you take it?
That should give us enough trading power to get Andrew Luck from the Colts, assuming they continue their decline to the #1 draft position.
I know it sucks to look ahead at next year; and I am not throwing the towel in on this season. But let’s face the music, next year will come whether we plan ahead or not.
I would almost trade Tebow and Orton for picks, play Quinn through the rest of the year, draft Luck and build the defense.
Ok, enough about next year.
Prediction: Broncos 31 Chargers 22
Well, football is a business and since the team insn’t investing anything in Tebow if the Dolphins offered that deal it would be too good to pass up for the Broncos.
I don’t think Orton, Tebow, or Quinn will be on the Broncos roster next season. I think we’ll have all new QBs.
Chargers off to a 3-1 start which out of the norm for them. Of course they haven’t played a Team with a winning record with the exception of Patriots which is their only loss. Chiefs fought them hard but came up short. Looks like Gates is still have foot problems.
Orton is tied with the Chargers’ Philip Rivers with a league-worst six interceptions thru 4 games.
Current NFL ranking for Chargers Defense:
Rush Defense: #12
Pass Defense: #5
Overall Ranking: #6
Current NFL ranking for Broncos Defense:
Rush Defense: 13th (We’re moving up!)
Pass Defense: 24th (We dropped off… Rodgers will bring down rankings every week for his opponents).
Overall Ranking: 23rd…. (down from 15th last week).
The positive is that our rush defense is improved and playing consistent. With the exception of McFadden we haven’t given up a 100 yard rushing game since then I don’t believe…at least a 100 yard game to one back.
Curent NFL ranking for Chargers Offense:
Charger Pass: #6
Charger Rush: #18
Overall Ranking: #7
Current NFL ranking for Broncos Offense:
Broncos Pass: #24
Broncos Rush: #25
Overall Ranking: #24 (Moved up from last week at #27).
Unfortunately on paper it looks like a one sided battle, but that’s why we play the game.
Food for thought on the prediction trail………
I have taken a look at some schedules, records, numbers, and this is what I find. The Chargettes are a whopping 3-1, defeating Minnesota (1-3), Kansas City (1-3) and Miami (0-4). In defeating these teams, their margin of winning was a touchdown or less, with the exception being Miami which they won by 10 points. In their only loss for the season to date being to the Patriots, they lost by 14, still scoring over 20 points, but allowing the Pats to have 35. Now, overall average scoring for the 4 games, the Chargettes allowed average 21.25 pts. Per game while averaging scoring 22.75 pts. per game. Now on our side of the scoring stats, we find that we have allowed 27.75 ppg while scoring 20.25 ppg. This being, in my opinion to a much different (tougher) schedule than the Chargettes have faced. We have one 24 point game (Bengals), and scored 23 against the SB Champs last weekend whereas the Chargettes have scored 24 once against the Dolphins, which isn’t saying much. They only managed 21 against the Pats.
With that said, and our defense strengthened this coming Sunday, things might look a little better for us. I sure hope so. I am not expecting a high scoring game. I am expecting that watching the game on t.v. is going to be difficult because of the cameras shaking due to the noise the Bronco fans are going to subject the Chargettes to. I also predict that our defense is going to have at least one pick 6 to help lead us to a victory. By all of my calculations, there is absolutely no reason we don’t beat these guys.
Denver 24
Chargers 21
Remember how well the Chiefs looked last season because they only played 4 teams with a winning record then they got spanked in the first round. We could pull off an upset victory this weekend.
Hopefully with Bailey back we’ll blitz more and cause Rivers some pain!
I’d have to go back and check recap for Bengals but I don’t believe Benson went over 100 yds. Good point brian.
McFadden ready to hit 500 yds and we’re only a quarter of the way thru the season.
Broncos will finally get a turnover for a touchdown this game!
Elvis pulls a “strip sack” on Rivers with Miller there to pick up the rock and run the distance for his first NFL touchdown!
Broncos – 30
Chargers- 27
Broncos 31 chargers 24
[...] practice notes and photos. [...]
Broncos are getting more healthy as the season goes on. We got DJ back last week, Knowshon should be able to stay healthier with Willis starting, Willis should stay fresher with a healthy Knowshon spelling him, Champ is back and I believe he stayed out a little longer with extra precaution so he could be full go this week vs the chargers, plus Elvis has not yet been totally healthy. When he is…LOOK OUT QBs. Von Miller already has 4 sacks and that is without the threat of a healthy Dumervil on the opposite side.
SD 34
DEN 20
I’m just being realistic.
This is what Jeff Legwold at DP has to say about this weekends matchup:
“One school of thought says the Chargers team coming to Denver this weekend is not quite on par with San Diego’s teams that won the AFC West four of the last five seasons”.
“Perhaps so, but these Chargers are still 3-1 to open a season for the first time since 2006, and they still have Philip Rivers playing quarterback. Rivers is 8-2 in his 10 career starts against the Broncos, having tossed 18 touchdown passes in those games”.
‘And although the Packers tested the Broncos’ secondary with a vertical scheme that challenged Denver well down the field, especially the team’s safeties, with Aaron Rodgers seemingly fitting the football in wherever he wished, the Chargers have by necessity shown a little different attack this year”.
“While Rivers is considered by personnel executives throughout the league to be one of the most accurate passers with the deep ball, the Chargers’ first four opponents have constructed most of their defensive game plans to keep Rivers from showing that”.
“Wide receiver Vincent Jackson is the only player with a catch longer than 50 yards over the first four games”.
“And two of the San Diego running backs — Mike Tolbert and Ryan Mathews — are No. 1 and No. 3 on the team in catches with 25 and 19, respectively. That puts the pair on pace for 100 and 76 catches, respectively, an unlikely event to be sure”.
“When addressing Tolbert’s production Wednesday, Rivers said, “I don’t know if he’ll end up catching that many balls, but that’s what the defense is giving us right now.”
“Tolbert and Jackson are also the only Chargers to have touchdown receptions this season”.
“In looking at the Chargers’ first four outings, Rivers has shown the signs of frustration that the team has not had its usual allotment of big plays, but he has also shown plenty of patience”.
“All of those passes to the backs demonstrate a willingness to get some yards and keep a drive moving. And his six interceptions in the team’s first three games show he is pressing at times”.
“But with Tolbert and Mathews being so active, it will challenge the Broncos’ linebackers plenty, and it may mean Wesley Woodyard is a key part of the defensive puzzle Sunday”.
“Woodyard has started in place of D.J. Williams at times this season, but he is also one of the team’s first choices on passing downs in the short and intermediate parts of the field, and that’s where the Chargers have done most of their best work thus far”.
“Beyond Jackson, the Chargers do not have another wide receiver with more than six catches this year — Patrick Crayton has six”.
“So although the Packers stressed the Broncos defense one way — Green Bay had three pass plays of at least 43 yards last Sunday — the Chargers figure to challenge the Broncos in a another”.
“It’s one that will put linebackers like Williams, Woodyard and Joe Mays on the hot seat”.
My recommendation is that you read the thoughts of royalbroncofan1, eddiecheddar, seweatherman1, and then breath a sigh of relief, because those thoughts are rather insightful in my opinion.
It does look to me as an excellent opportunity this week for our guys to put a W in the column. I almost hate that! I love for my team to win, but does that mean we have to put up with the Orton mediocrity for another 3 or 4 games?
If that is the case, I would rather loose the game on Sunday!
Trust me when I tell you that I am an old guy who is a die hard Bronco fan, and I hate for them to loose any game!
But, I also hate MEDIOCRITY!
I am becoming angered with the HC based upon the fact that He seems to be in over his head.
I’ll give him this. It is His first year in this job. I can’t even imagine the challenges that require his time, BUT, to say that there would need to be a totally different offensive game plan to start Tim Tebow is ludicrous.
How difficult is it to add 5 – 10 plays to the offense? Not at all! He doesn’t even have to come up with those plays! I am certain that the OC has already figured them out.
I’m just a frustrated fan that want’s to see the excitement brought back into our games!
Max Denver has noted that Fox is “Feeling the urgency (finally)”
This game may be THE must-win-game.
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. – Last January, the Broncos staggered into the offseason having lost 10 of their last 12 games, including five defeats by 14 or more points. Being beaten was bad enough, being beaten down as they were against Oakland at home (45-point margin of defeat), at San Diego (21 points) and at Arizona (30 points) illustrated the degree of despair of Denver’s straits.
But that still left the Broncos with five narrow defeats by collective 24 points in that dozen-game span, a collection of losses to clubs that ranged from stellar (AFC finalist New York) to straggling (San Francisco, enduring its eighth consecutive non-winning season).
Two losses by a combined six points this year has left the Broncos with a familiar bugaboo: an inability to consistently win close games. The 1-2 record in those games this year is stacked upon a 2-8 record in the Broncos’ 10 games from mid-2009 through 2010 that were decided by eight points or less.
That gives the Broncos a 3-10 mark in one-score games since the 6-0 start of 2009. In the two-plus seasons that led up to that fast start, they were 13-4 in games decided by eight points or less.
By comparison, in the same time frame in which the Broncos are 3-10 in games decided by eight points or less, the Chargers are 13-6. Is it any wonder, then, that the Chargers are 22-8 in all games since the sixth contest of 2009, while the Broncos are 7-23?
One of those 10 close Denver losses in the last 24 months was to San Diego — by a 33-28 score in the season finale last year. Thus, the Chargers know the Broncos are capable of hanging around and turning a game into one that could be decided by one play. The problem for Denver is that the solitary play went in Oakland’s favor on Sept. 12 and the Titans’ favor 13 days later.
“If you look at our film, which I know our opponent is, but you just look at our games and we could be sitting at 3-1 very easily too. The reality is we’re not,” Broncos coach John Fox told San Diego media on a conference call Wednesday.
“We’re not light years away. You’re talking about a league that’s very evenly matched and built that way. We’ve just got to get over that hump and obviously in the first quarter (of the season) we have not.”
Since 1978, when the 16-game schedule was instituted, 38 teams have rallied to make the playoffs after winning one of their first four games. Twenty-four of those teams made the playoffs. But of the teams that started 1-4, just 14 finished with a winning record and only seven of those managed to make in to the playoffs in that same 33-season span.
Given that data — and the more pressing fact that a win would pull them within a game of the division-leading Chargers, but a loss would place them three games back — the urgency around Sunday’s game is obvious.
“It’s time to turn it around now,” defensive tackle Kevin Vickerson said. “It’s a (division) game. You’ve got to start off fresh. We had a bad one (against) Oakland that we feel we should have won, and now it’s just we don’t want to have that feeling again of ‘woulda, coulda, shoulda.’”
“Now, we’ve got to go out and handle business and do what we’ve got to do.”
But win or lose, the Broncos remain neck deep in the progress of digging out from previous years. One game might provide a booster shot to their confidence, but the long-term project remains in play.
“I think it’s like all works in progress. There’s things to change. There’s culture. There’s a way you go about it. The people you go about it with,” Fox said on the conference call Wednesday. “We’re in the very early stages of that.”
And one of the biggest steps toward turning the work in progress into a work of art is to win tight games — especially when the destiny of the season might ride upon it.
Cant remember the last time a Bronco fan saw this….a defensive player named AFC defensive player of the month. I will give you a hint as to who he is….he also got defensive rookie of the month. Okay…who said Rahim Moore?
http://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2011/10/01/pff-september-awards/
Decker leads the Broncos with 20 receptions fir 270 yards and four touchdowns. He also returned a punt for a touchdown making him the first non-running back in team history to score 5 touchdowns in the first four games of a season.
Decker missed the last half of his senior year, which may have scared teams from picking him up. Decker tore a ligament that holds the first two toes together when Deckers University of Minnesota played a game versus Ohio State in Oct. 2009. The injury requires a lengthy and laborious rehabilitation, known as a Lisfranc injury, there is no guarantee of a successful return.
“I couldn’t do anything. All I did was pool workout and really upper body lifting, which I think got me a little too top heavy,” Decker said. “So, I was behind the 8-ball a little bit at that time, and this year’s just is night and day.”
As we all know Decker was held out of TC and OTAs due to this years lockout. However, for the second straight season Decker worked out with a nutritionist and Cardinals WR Larry Fitzgerald in Phoenix and in Minneapolis as well as in Brian Dawkins’ workouts in Denver.
“Yeah, it was the first offseason I’ve ever had to just focus on football and develop myself and my skills,” Decker said. “As far as health-wise and body goes, I leaned out a little bit, I was a little top-heavy the last couple of years, which affects you as a wide receiver in being quick and being fast.”
“I did a lot more core stability, a lot more (leg) stuff, there’s certain muscles you use to be more explosive and I just focused on that and at the same time just had the time finally to run a lot of routes and get in the weight room and do a lot of run, which made a big difference.”
Coach Fox lauded him for being a true professional both in mind and body.
Decker was too thick in his upper body his rookie season but Coach Fox didn’t notice, “I see a different guy than I saw on tape — for the better. He’s a fierce competitor and he has a lot of the football character that you’re looking for and the way that he went about his business he’s reaping those investments now.”
Deckers’ propensity making up for mistakes with big plays impresses his coaches.
In our win against Cincy last month, he lost a fumble but overcame it by becoming the first wide receiver in team history to score twice and top 100 yards receiving in his first career start.
In GB this past sunday, he rounded off a route that led Charles Woodson to jump the pass for a pick 6. Still he didn’t let that get him down and actually redeemed himself to score on two different TDs, one for 5 yards and the other for 33 yards before the game got too far out of reach for the Broncos.
“If you play receiver and you haven’t dropped one or you haven’t fumbled one, you haven’t played,” Fox said. “To be able to have that mental toughness and be able to overcome that is key, and that’s something that’s very impressive.”
Decker points to his baseball days in college for making it easier to put aside a mistake as he would need to forget about a strikeout right away and focus on his next at-bat with a clear head.
“You can’t control everything. You can’t be perfect. But it’s how you bounce back, it’s how you react to something like that that tests your character and the kind of player you are,” Decker said.
Something that younger players in the NFL should take note on: one play needn’t have to make for a bad day.
“I’ve been through that. In college, I had my times where you’re so hard on yourself, it affects your whole game,” Decker said. “You’ve just got to learn from it and learn from it and know what happened and bounce back.”
To me Decker is what a Broncos player should embody and i’m definitely happy to have him in the Orange and Blue.
-Royalty
*Oops wrong blog
Makes me want to sing “the Champ is back”
can we get demaryuis thomas healthy fo once i mean damn every time i look up hes hurt last yr b fo da draft he was hinder by a foot injury then gets knocked out by ravens on as kickoff then he gets a bad leg injurt in da off season now a damn finger man he n royal cum back we can do sum great thangs on offense cause he replaced calvin johnson at georgia tech as a household wr n college n we seen wat cj can do im ready fo tebow 2 get da lineup only wit healthy wr cause we r alot betta than last yr.
phil simms said it best last wk dont count us out we been n every game til da end n green bay did wat ne coach or team will do have a field day when a corner like champ is not n da lineup n i was tryna give orton a chance but since he blew dat 6-0 start n 09 his ass aint won but 6games its time 2 move 4ward he cant cutt it
bmart…
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