Denver Broncos training camp day one observations and standouts

Personnel Notes

Offense

The Broncos’ starting offense included few surprises, although the team rotated skill players quite a bit.

The top offense included an offensive line (from left to right) of Garett Bolles, Dalton Risner, Connor McGovern, Ron Leary, and Ja’Wuan James.

McGovern, the center, was snapping the ball to Joe Flacco, who was joined in the backfield for most of the first-team reps by Phillip Lindsay (who seemed to practice in full) and Royce Freeman.

The wide receiver and tight end reps were split but not evenly, of course. Most of the reps at receiver went to Courtland Sutton, DaeSean Hamilton, and Tim Patrick, but the Broncos did work in Brendan Langley, Juwann Winfree, River Cracraft, and even undrafted rookie Trinity Benson from what I could see.

The tight end position was a mixture of Troy Fumagalli, Jake Butt (7 on 7), Noah Fant, and Jeff Heuerman with the top unit, but Heuerman spent a fair amount of time with Kevin Hogan’s no. 2 offense.

Drew Lock led the no. 3 offense for the Broncos, and was primarily throwing passes to players like Benson, Fred Brown, Romell Guerrier, and one highlight-reel play to Brendan Langley.

Defense

The Broncos’ starting defense was a front seven of Derek Wolfe, Shelby Harris, Adam Gotsis, Von Miller, Bradley Chubb, Todd Davis, and Josey Jewell, and a defensive backfield of Chris Harris (CB), Bryce Callahan (CB), Justin Simmons (S), and Kareem Jackson (S).

Jackson has been working at safety since OTAs and it’s clear the Broncos plan to keep him there at this point, though when they rotated down to a four CB look, he rolled to the outside corner position.

When the Broncos went into their nickel formation, Isaac Yiadom was the first man to join them. He played outside corner along with Bryce Callahan while Chris Harris took slot duties.

Will Parks and Su’a Cravens manned the second unit at safety, and Cravens played mostly deep free safety all practice. He was flying around and looked pretty sharp out there while Parks was his usual, playmaking self, moving up into the box and causing problems.

Yiadom and De’Vante Bausby worked with the second-team at corner.