Domonique
Foxworth

I went to the Denver Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year banquet that I went to on Friday. I was there with Champ and Boss Bailey, who came with his wife. It was my second year going, I went the year before. It’s always a great function because it is a big fundraiser. They raise tons and tons of money for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver.

They honor somebody every year – last year they honored Pat Hamill, who is the Chairman of Oakwood Homes. He and I have become friends since then. This year, they honored Pat Bowlen, who is one of my favorite people in the world, he signs my checks. I guess I have to change my name to Pat to be honored by them.

It’s a great event to raise money for the Boys and Girls Club. One of the cool things about it is the entertainment is singing and dancing and poems written and performed by kids from the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver. It’s always impressive because the kids are really, really talented. Since I’m normally at the Boys and Girls Club once a week – the Broncos branch – I know a lot of the kids that won and I know a lot of the kids that performed. So, it’s very personal which is pretty cool.

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I have had a lot transpire in the last couple of weeks. As you may have read I made the executive board of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA). I am one of 10 players and was told that I am the youngest player ever, which is a major accomplishment for me. I am just really proud and honored to be named to this board and I look forward to the responsibilities that it requires to be a representative of the NFL as a whole and not just the Broncos. They added three new members, because two dropped off and one — Kevin Mawae of the Tennessee Titans — became the president. We added Mike Vrabel of the New England Patriots, Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints and myself.

All 10 positions were elected in. Seven people returned and the rest were nominated. I was nominated all three times, but it got kind of dramatic at the end. The very first time Rod (Smith) nominated me, but I didn’t quite make it. Then for the next spot, T.J. Houshmandzadeh of the Cincinnati Bengals nominated me and I didn’t quite make that one. The last time, Drew Brees nominated me and each person that was nominated had to give a little speech. So I gave a little speech and I guess it put me over the top and they voted me in. I was very proud. The next day I was sitting on the stage next to the President of the Player’s Association and the Executive Director Gene Upshaw. I felt kind of important, but mostly I was honored and proud for the opportunity.

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Oh, the many frustrations of this season as a Denver Bronco.

We had another loss, another frustrating loss, against a team we feel like we could beat. That seems to be the story of the season. We come off a great game and then play poorly.

We have been extremely inconsistent. It’s frustrating missing the playoffs this year. It’s one of the many drawbacks of our inconsistency and the constant change that we’ve had especially as a defense. One of the most unfortunate things about having a season like this is the casualties we have around here as far as players are concerned. It’s just the way the business is if your team isn’t producing. Generally, someone has to pay the price. Sometimes coaches get cut, sometimes players get cut. Fan support thins. So there’s a lot of prices being paid around here right now.

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We win!

Me and my main man Hamza Abdullah filled in at safety. Hamza is definitely one of my closest friends on the team. I’ve talked about him a lot on the blog before and how he’s a very good young safety. We were able to start together at safety for the Kansas City game, and all week practicing together we just had a great time. We had fun communicating and making plays all week during practice. It was a whole lot of fun, and then of course the game was even more fun. There’s definitely something special about playing and performing with somebody that you have a pretty good friendship with. While you’re on the field you feel really close to everybody out there and you want everybody to do well, but there’s something different about being out there with guys that you really care about. I think the people in the secondary, we all really care about each other and we’re close friends.

It was just a great performance by the team overall, and there were some great plays in the secondary. There were a bunch of interceptions, and unfortunately I was not able to get one, but it doesn’t really matter. We won. That’s all that matters, because we are now winners. I like being a winner. Being a loser stinks. I don’t think I want to be a loser anymore. I’d like to win a lot more games.

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I guess we’ll start with the most pressing issue over the weekend, the injury of Kevin Everett and how severe that was. To be honest with you, I was really worried. I prayed, but I didn’t expect it to be nearly as bad as it is now. I’ve heard different reports, some say that he’s going to have trouble breathing and he needs to fight for his life and that he won’t ever walk again.

Those things are upsetting. I didn’t expect it to be too bad, mainly because we’ve had a lot of stretchers the past few months around here. Which is not a good thing, but fortunately our guys came out OK, going all the way back to Al Wilson. Considering how long it took him to get off the field and they took him to the hospital, it was terrifying.

Just a week ago, Karl Paymah was in the same scenario. He wasn’t moving, and his hit seemed so much worse because it was right on top of the head. But I guess you can’t really tell by how hard it is, it’s more about the placement. We had Warrick Holdman in training camp get taken off on a stretcher, and it’s just too much.

We’ve obviously had a few really major tragedies, losing our players, so it’s a lot to deal with. Those are off-the-field things, which are a little different, but there’s nothing you can do to really protect yourself from those sort of things. They teach you to tackle properly, and sometimes with the speed of the game and the strength that the players have, those collisions happen. They happen all the time, and if it’s at that particular angle, it could be pretty dangerous. Like I said, we prayed and are continuing to pray for him, and you never want to see anything like that happen.

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I had a really, really busy week. It was really positive for the most part. We got a win, which is always good. I was able to stand on the side during the game and do some coaching, and I was really into the game as kind of a half-fan, half-coach, just to try to help out the young guys.

A lot of people got a chance to play, and a lot of people who aren’t here any more got a chance to put their talents on film, which was really good. Hopefully some other people around the league will pick them up based on what they saw us do on Thursday. Sadly, we lost a lot more players again. But the good thing about it is we’re done cutting. So the people who are here now are your 2007 Denver Broncos, which is great.

One of the big surprises was us cutting Kyle Johnson. You can’t say enough about him as a person and we’re all sad to see him go. He’s one of the brightest guys on this team and he’s one of the hardest working. I really haven’t read the paper, but I assume that everything the coaches have said about him has been positive. I’m sure they’re not happy to have to get rid of him, but it’s a complicated game with the salary cap, and you can only keep a certain amount of players.

I think one of the things that keeps me around here is that I can fill a lot of roles on the team, and I think that one of the things that hurt Kyle was that he’s a fullback. A lot of the other guys we have playing fullback like Cecil Sapp, he’s a fullback/halfback, and now they’re making Mike Bell kind of a fullback/halfback. Versatility is the way to go, and it’s the way this league has been going. Kyle is definitely one of the top five fullbacks in the league, and unfortunately fullbacks are kind of going out of style. A lot of people are using tight ends and what they call an “H-back” system. I expect him to get picked up pretty soon and I wish him luck with the rest of his career, and I’m sure the Broncos fans will miss him and his little touchdown dance that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing.

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Well, I’ll start by thanking everybody. Week after week we set a new record. We’ve reached 53 responses, which eclipsed last week’s 48. I read them all, as usual, and I appreciate the support.

I guess a good place to start is probably the Dallas game. It was pretty funny — well, not funny.  Funny’s not the word. But after practice on Monday I went down to the Boys and Girls Club just to hang out a little bit, and that’s supposed to be a safe place, but it really is not for me.

All the kids had a lot of jokes and questions like, “So why’d you guys lose?” and questions that I can’t answer. I slipped on one play and a couple of guys asked me, “Why’d you slip?” I really don’t know what to answer to that. There’s really no good answer. It’s a pretty simple, yet complicated question. I slipped because it was slippery.

But it was good to see them, and as far as the game goes, it was really disappointing. We can make a thousand excuses, but you don’t get to this level making excuses and you can’t win as many games and go as far as we want this team to go making excuses.

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First, I just want to acknowledge the soldiers that have responded to the blog and let them know that our prayers are with them and we all appreciate what they are doing in all parts of the world.

It’s pretty cool to have the blog and the Internet. I guess I kind of make myself sound old, but I’m still amazed by the Internet sometimes and the fact that people can check out my blog from places like Japan and then respond to it. But anyway, just wanted to let them know that I read their responses and I appreciate their support and definitely know that we’re behind them.

Right now it’s probably going to be a rocky blog because I’m extremely tired. We had quite a last couple hours. We played the game in San Francisco and were able to win, which is always good, and did some promising things, and we left from there to the airport and got back to Denver at about 1:30, and I got back to my house around 2:30.

Then I unpacked my suitcase and repacked it for the next day’s trip, and now I’m here doing the blog at about 9-ish, because we have meetings coming up at 11, and from there we’re going to head to Dallas for a week and play them this coming Saturday.

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Where do we start?

I want to address my friend TerpsFan. First of all, go Terps. Just wondering what class we had together back in the day. Tell me a little about yourself.

I guess we can get right down to what people really care about: the start of camp. It’s camp. Everybody has things in their job that are not quite their favorite. This is the toughest time of the year for coaches and players, and our day starts at about 7:30. That’s what time I get up.

I normally go to bed around 10, get home around 9:30, so it’s a pretty long day we spend over here. It’s not always a lot of fun, but the great thing is you get to spend a lot of time with your teammates. It’s when you start to build that team bond.

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We’ve got to start with my man J.R. from Jupiter, Florida.

First of all, I thank FroHawk27 for standing up for me. Appreciate it.

But anyway, something I expect in my position is to have to deal with things like this and respond to it and it’s not something I shy away from. Something my dad taught me about being a man is to take responsibility when you don’t do so well and be proud when you do do well. So I’ve always been willing to take responsibility and I can think of a plethora of plays in games throughout my life from the time I was playing in Pop Warner to now where I wish I had done things differently and I wish I had played better.

The one that comes to mind first is actually my sophomore year in high school. The last play of the game, we were playing against the best running back in the state. He was a really good running back and also a really good linebacker. I was a sophomore, he was a senior. We were really close to beating them. There was no time left, we were on like the 3-yard line.

I was our running back so they handed me the ball and it was just me and him in the hole to win the game. He probably weighed about 210-220 and I was about 135. My ego got the best of me and I decided to try and run him over and score the touchdown.

Didn’t work.

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