Mason's Morsels

At a walk-through practice in August, the story isn’t so much what the team does, but who will play in the following day’s preseason game.

So it was for the Broncos as they broke apart from the host Dallas Cowboys for a final on-field session that saw them run at half-speed — with neither pads nor helmets.

“Well, we had two good days of two-a-days. We had pads on both morning and afternoon. We got a lot done, so it’s been a good trip,” Head Coach Mike Shanahan said. “Today’s a little bit different — a day for recovery time before you actually play the game, but we got a lot done in a short amount of time.”

After the one hour of on-field work Friday afternoon, Shanahan confirmed that Javon Walker, Brandon Marshall, Matt Lepsis and Tony Scheffler all would play Saturday night. The news, however, was not so good for tackle Adam Meadows and defensive end Tim Crowder, both of whom were injured during Thursday afternoon’s practice.

“(Meadows) has got a bad calf strain. I’m guessing that’s a couple of weeks,” Shanahan said. “Crowder will not play; he was on crutches today. Greek (Head Athletic Trainer Steve Antonopulos) thinks there’s a chance he could play next week, so that’s a positive sign.”

The Broncos’ general plan of play distribution for Saturday’s game remains unchanged from their protocol for the second preseason game over the last several years, with the first-teamers expected to see between 20-25 plays of action, taking them into the second quarter before ceding proceedings to the second and third units.

However, it is expected that the Cowboys will play their No. 1 unit a little longer than Denver will.

“To be honest with you, it’s always a good test for some of our younger guys,” Shanahan said. “You get a chance to see them against their starters, and we’ll get a chance to get good evaluation if that’s the case.”

But there’s been plenty of evaluation in the previous three days, which were more productive than the last week of camp typically can be.

“The third week is normally the toughest week of training camp, because guys get tired of hitting each other,” Shanahan said. “But you come here and everybody’s ready to go, and it’s one of the benefits of going to another NFL camp.”

MUSTARD AT RIGHT TACKLE: With injuries riddling the Broncos’ complement of tackles, Shanahan said he had “no choice” but to move Chad Mustard from tight end to tackle.

Meadows’ injury Thursday became the fourth to strike the unit; he joins Ryan Harris and Jacob Rogers as tackles who will miss Saturday’s game, while Lepsis has recovered enough from his groin strain last week to take part. “Any time you have four tackles go down, he’s got to play there,” Shanahan said. “But Chad’s a guy that has played both positions — he hasn’t played (tackle) for a while, but he’ll play half the game (Saturday) at right tackle.”

Mustard worked at tackle during the first part of organized team activities in 2006 before moving to tight end, where he had remained until this week.

WHO’S WHERE: Nate Webster worked with the first team at strongside linebacker … Amon Gordon and Sam Adams lined up with the first team at defensive tackle, while John Engelberger and Ebenezer Ekuban remained at defensive end … The first-team offensive line included left tackle Matt Lepsis, left guard Chris Myers, center Tom Nalen, right guard Montrae Holland and right tackle Erik Pears … Brandon Marshall continued to work with the first unit at wide receiver.

RANDOM THOUGHTS: Thursday night, I wasn’t feeling too well, so I lay down for about an hour hoping that a little rest would reinvigorate me. It did, so having missed the dinner offered here at the hotel, I hit the road trolling for some food.

En route, I fiddled with the radio, becoming truly amazed at the number of Spanish-language FM radio stations available here, a tally which seemed to match the amount of English-language outlets on the dial. On one station, I heard the disc jockey make the following utterances:

“If the plural of ‘mouse’ is ‘mice,’ then why isn’t the plural of ‘house’ ‘hice?’”

“A teacher has ‘taught,’ but a preacher has not ‘praught.’”

“You play at a recital, but you recite a play.”

At this point, our host immediately transitioned into fluent Spanish, with which he intoned the upcoming song — also in Spanish.

Is there a point? Not really, except to illustrate that the English language is one odd duck.

With that, we’re done with the practices from Valley Ranch … until Saturday, vaya con Dios.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 17th, 2007 at 4:33 pm and is filed under Training Camp. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.