Mason's Morsels

Boss Bailey is a Bronco, officially. The team announced at 3:36 p.m. MST on Thursday that the team had signed the unrestricted free agent linebacker — and younger brother of All-Pro cornerback Champ Bailey.

NFL.com first reported that the Broncos had agreed to terms with Boss Bailey on Thursday afternoon.

Boss Bailey has traversed one of the more inspirational paths in recent NFL annals. He overcame two torn knee ligaments just to make it into pro football; he tore a left-knee ligament in high school and one in his right knee during his time at the University of Georgia. He also missed the entire 2004 season with torn meniscus in his right knee, but recovered fully.

He amassed 118 tackles in the last two seasons for the Detroit Lions while only missing one game in that time.

The signing makes the Baileys the third set of siblings concurrently on a Broncos roster, following in the footsteps of Eldon and William Danenhauer — together for four games in 1960 — and Doug and Dave Widell, who shared a locker room from 1990-92.

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The Denver Post reported Friday night that John Lynch will return to the Broncos for the 2008 season, which would be his fifth in Denver and 16th in the NFL.

Lynch has made the Pro Bowl in each of his four seasons in Denver and has been a team captain throughout his time in orange and blue.

Throughout the offseason, Lynch had discussed the need to take his time and be prudent in deciding whether to return, noting that this was the first juncture in his career in which he pondered the issue.

Discuss below …

As the league year and free agency began, the Denver tenures of two Broncos starters ended.

Wide receiver Javon Walker and weakside linebacker Ian Gold were both released on Friday afternoon, one day shy of two months after a frustrating 2007 season that saw both grapple with knee injuries.

BRONCOS TV: MASON ON WALKER, GOLD:

Gold’s injury sidelined him for most of the Week 15 loss at Houston and all of the last two games, during which Jamie Winborn took his place. Walker, meanwhile, finished the season on the field — with two receptions in each of the final three games — but knee problems took their toll, necessitating surgery on Oct. 19 and a recovery that limited him to spot duty upon his return to the field over a month later.

Walker seemed to foretell the future the day after the regular-season finale, when he said “No,” when asked whether he saw the team as a good fit for him.

“What it boils down to at this point is I’ve got to go where the best fit is for me,” he said during a rambling question-and-answer session that occasionally saw him lapse into the third person.

Javon Walker, Dec. 31, 2007:

“Wherever Javon’s talents can be used at, I’ve got to go to where the best fit’s for me.”

Microfracture surgery on the ailing knee is a possibility, Head Coach Mike Shanahan acknowledged at his season-ending press conference in January.

“There’s talk of a microfracture somewhere down the line,” Shanahan said then. “It could be two or three years from now; it could be four years. We just don’t know.”

Reports are also rampant that the Broncos have retained two of their unrestricted free agents — defensive end John Engelberger and tight end Nate Jackson.

Comment below.

As the regular season dawned, Jordan Beck was unemployed and headed for a six-week stint in which he went through eight tryouts.

“It was some kind of world record,” he wanly acknowledged.

But as the season faded, he was one of the Broncos’ leading special teamers, placing himself in position to compete for playing time at linebacker next season.

Beck finished second on the team in total special-teams tackles last season in spite of playing in just 11 games; his 10 stops — eight solo with two assists — placed him just one behind Jamie Winborn.

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Once more, Champ Bailey will start in the Pro Bowl. Once more, he finished the year among the elite at his position, earning second-team All-Pro honors.

Yet the ninth season of Bailey’s exemplary career left him somewhat disheartened. He hadn’t been a part of a losing season since his final campaign with the Washington Redskins in 2003.

Individually, his streak of Pro Bowl bids continued to expand, and with eight in succession, Bailey is beginning to approach the territory at which Hall of Fame status becomes a legitimate possibility many years in the future.

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A larger-than-usual crowd was at John Lynch’s monthly ceremony to honor local student-athletes, but he knew that the increased turnout wasn’t for his “Salute the Stars” program.

“I’m sure you guys want some other information,” he said.

As it turned out, there was little new information to offer. Six days after being named an injury replacement to the AFC Pro Bowl roster, Lynch still has not finalized his plans for the 2008 season.

“I haven’t made that decision yet,” he said. “I’m not being evasive or anything; I’m just being true with you guys. I haven’t come to that time where I’ve made a decision yet.

“When I know, you guys will know.”

Watch the video below to see what Lynch had to say:

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Perhaps Hamza Abdullah’s starting opportunity might have come sooner had he not sustained a hip-flexor injury in Week 2 against the Raiders. He missed the following five games, but by the time he returned on Nov. 4 against Detroit, he was in line for the most extensive action of his career to date, splitting time with then-starting safety Nick Ferguson.

A week later, Abdullah was in the starting lineup — for good, as it turned out. He started at free safety in Kansas City while John Lynch recovered from a neck stinger, then moved to strong safety for the balance of the regular season.

Flashes of brilliance defined Abdullah’s half-season as starter. He notched 40 total tackles in his eight starts — tied for third on the team and first among defensive backs along with Champ Bailey — but also missed some stops, perhaps most notably in the Week 15 loss at Houston, when tight end Owen Daniels got free past him in the open field after a reception, leading to a 15-yard gain on third-and-6 that pulled the Texans out of purgatory at their own 8-yard-line.

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For the first time since his 2004 arrival in Denver, Champ Bailey did not earn first-team All-Pro plaudits as the Broncos were shut out of first-team All-Pro honorees for the first time since 2002.

Bailey received 11 votes, placing him on the second team behind New England’s Asante Samuel and San Diego’s Antonio Cromartie.

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A second snowstorm in three days blitzed through Dove Valley and the Front Range on Thursday. The first one didn’t affect the Broncos’ work one iota. The second one, however, forced them inside — and not to the nearby South Suburban Sports Dome, which was booked for a youth event.

With the Broncos’ usual inclement-weather option scrapped, they had to settle for working inside the team’s conditioning facility, on a field that is regulation width but is barely 30 yards in length.

“It was more of a walk-through, obviously,” Head Coach Mike Shanahan said. “But I think we got done what we needed to get done.”

The practice was the Broncos’ first inside the truncated indoor field at their facility since Week 16 of the 2006 season, when a near-blizzard kept the team at their facility.

“A bubble (at team headquarters) would be nice today. I was going to fight those little kids off today over at the bubble down the street, but I decided not to,” Shanahan deadpanned.

The weather not only forced the team inside, but postponed the scheduled audition of punters. That will now take place Friday.

“We had a hard time getting those punters in,” Shanahan said.

While the team’s search for a new punter stalled like a low-pressure center over the Texas panhandle, the progress of Jay Cutler did not, as he returned to full practice Thursday after missing Wednesday’s work with a sore knee.

“He’ll be ready to go (Sunday),” Shanahan said.

Wide receiver Javon Walker also returned to full practice, while Ian Gold, Daniel Graham and Brandon Stokley were sidelined.

There’ll be no Brandon Stokley or Ian Gold tonight, but Daniel Graham is among the Broncos’ 45 active players.

Graham, who was listed as questionable, was seen testing out his sprained ankle about three hours before kickoff and will be in uniform just 11 days after suffering the high-ankle sprain at Houston on Dec. 13.

Joining Stokley and Gold on the sidelines will be wide receiver Taylor Jacobs, fullback Mike Bell, guard Isaac Snell and defensive ends Larry Birdine and Paul Carrington. Darrell Hackney is inactive, but in uniform as the No. 3 quarterback.

Matt Prater will make his Denver debut, as will safety Roderick Rogers, who was called up from the practice squad last week.

For San Diego, the following players are inactive: Charlie Whitehurst (third QB), Paul Oliver, Lorenzo Neal, Anthony Waters, Roman Oben, Jamal Williams, Malcolm Floyd and Scott Chandler.

Off to to the field, but before I go, some odd press-box sights from the open-air setup here at Qualcomm Stadium …

There’s a guy in a Santa Claus suit eating dinner in the row behind me. Mercifully — and for the sake of decorum and hygiene — he removed his beard before consuming his victuals. He looks about like Seinfeld’s Kramer as Santa Claus — quite trim and a tad unkempt, in no way looking the part. If he was sprouting anti-capitalist propaganda and explaining the absence of delicatessens under Communist rule, he’d perfectly mimic Kramer.

… There’s a baby-changing station in the men’s room here in the press box. I reckon that legally such setups have to be in place at all lavoratorical facilities in municpally-funded stadiums, but the next infant I see carried through a press box will be the first.