My Week at Summer Camp – Day Two

Note: This week, after realizing that planned (and desperately needed) vacation time coincided with the opening week of Bronco training camp, I decided to head down to Dove Valley for several days this week. I will be providing nightly updates on what we have learned about your 2008 Denver Broncos. Note #2: Given that I recently celebrated a 33^rd birthday and have been ‘with’ the Broncos longer than some of these players have been alive (Ryan Clady, born: September 6, 1986) I have accepted Mike Shanahan’s offer to long time veterans to only participate in one of the two-a-day practices each day.

Monday, July 28, 2008

• Back for morning number two and it is just as hot and crowded as Sunday morning. What is with that? Don’t these people have anything better to do with their Mondays? Huh? What’s that? Why I am sacrificing for you dear reader that’s why. I am a giver.
• Let’s go back to the running backs
  • I said yesterday that Ryan Torain wasn’t overly impressive; however I will say that today he looked much better. He was quicker to the line, made a single cut and hit the hole. In fact, after Ryan broke off a long run, a starry-eyed optimist could even imagine him as a taller Terrell Davis. Thankfully, I am not a starry-eyed optimist so I saw it as a nice run on the 4^th day of training camp…by a guy with skills to make us forget Travis Henry, Mike Bell, Tatum Bell, Quentin Griffin, Reuben Droughns and Olandis Gary. Damn, that kool-aid tasted really good after a hot day in the sun.
  • My boy A.A., Anthony Alridge, looked good again, cutting back against the grain and busting down the sideline for another long run.
• There was one overriding story in my mind today and that was the match-up of the offense and defense, and the defense’s domination.
  • Let’s start with two interceptions – one for each of Domonique Foxworth and Champ Bailey when they were both able to jump curl routes (which in fairness was practically all the offense ran).
  • When he wasn’t throwing picks, Cutler was running for his life. He would have been on his back on almost every drop back if the defense was allowed to hit the quarterback. The only entertainment was the half of the crowd that thought he had successfully avoided the rush and cheered wildly when he chucked it down field. These poor fans are going to be in for serious disappointment in that first game “How is Jay not getting away from this rush like in training camp? This Raider defense must be really good!”
  • Beside the two long runs above, there was only one highlight for the offense – a long pass to Brandon Marshall on the first play of a #1 offense vs. #2 defense scrimmage. Just a little glimpse of what we can look forward to after Marshall returns from his suspension to begin the season for all of his off-season fun. Sorry fantasy players, I forgot to mention that little fact when telling you how good Marshall looked yesterday. A clever ploy to get you to draft Marshall three rounds too early, or mere stupidity? Guess you will never know.
  • So the real question is: what does the defense’s domination tell us? My guess, not much. We all thought the Broncos had a great defense last year, until they got lit up in the first two pre-season games. So, all we know is that right now the Bronco defense is better than the Bronco offense. Who knows how they stack up against actual other teams.
• That’s it for today. Tomorrow we will be joined by Turner and will actually be sucking it up and sweating through both ends of the two-a-days.

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