Broncos camp: 3 things to be excited about, 3 things to be worried about so far.
The Denver Broncos are officially 10 days into training camp, which also happens to be their first on-field offseason activities of 2020.
Because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s a trial by fire for many players — many young players — adapting to new surroundings, a new offense, or new teammates. Some of them all at once.
With everything considered, it doesn’t seem like any Broncos players have really struggled to adapt to these unique circumstances. Even rookie wide receiver Jerry Jeudy, who may be a special case, talked about training camp not being too much for him to handle at this point.
Time is of the essence, and the Broncos are working hard to acclimate the new players to their new surroundings while putting some on-field feet to the work they did via Zoom meetings all offseason.
There have been plenty of question marks surrounding the Broncos all offseason, especially with such a young core of offensive players and a second-year quarterback, so what have been the major takeaways — good and bad — to what amounts to the first ‘third’ of training camp before the regular season begins in less than three weeks?
Let’s start with the exciting…
1. The defense has been strong since day one
After 10 days of practice, you’d be hard-pressed to find many negative opinions or any real negative analysis of the way the Broncos’ defense has been performing thus far.
The defensive line and pass rush have been making life very difficult for all three of the Broncos’ quarterbacks, and pressure is coming from all angles. Von Miller, Bradley Chubb, newcomer Jurrell Casey, Shelby Harris, and breakout candidate Dre’Mont Jones have all drawn rave reviews early in camp.
The good news is, it’s not only the pass rush that is standing out in camp so far.
The Broncos’ secondary — specifically their top four guys at the position — has been absolutely outstanding.
AJ Bouye and Bryce Callahan are now the top two cornerbacks for Denver this season, and the Broncos have what many in Denver and outside of Denver consider the best safety duo in the league in Kareem Jackson and Justin Simmons.
All of those guys have fit well together, and in particular, it’s great to see both Bouye and Callahan playing at full speed and showing they will be a formidable duo at the cornerback position in 2020.
Furthermore, it seems linebacker Alexander Johnson has taken the next step in his overall game, though Vic Fangio continues to challenge him to be better each day. Johnson has been knifing through the line of scrimmage, making plays in coverage, and taking a new level command of the defense this year.
At all three levels, the Broncos’ top defense has played well, and there’s strong depth on the defensive front.
The talk at camp lately has been about the ‘spike’ in year two of the Vic Fangio defense at most of his stops, and the 2020 Broncos don’t appear poised to spoil that apparent trend.
2. Drew Lock’s ‘command’ of the offense
Changing offensive coordinators in 2020 with a second-year quarterback didn’t seem ideal back in January when the Broncos made that call, but it seemed like an even bigger risk as NFL teams were not permitted their typical offseason work.
With that said, it’s been a tremendous encouragement to consistently hear teammates and coaches praise Drew Lock’s ‘command’ of the offense.
After 10 days of practice, head coach Vic Fangio was asked about the areas where Lock has done well, and after noting his ability to throw the ball to every level of the field and make plays with his legs, he noted Lock’s ‘command’ of the offense.
Other teammates have talked about the way Lock has been running the offense, the way he’s coaching up other players in certain aspects of the offense, and the fact that — in general — 10 days into practices that no one has been talking about Lock as if he looks lost out there running Shurmur’s offense, or even uncomfortable.
There is a learning curve to everything and Lock has not been perfect in practices, but progress is being made, and if it has Fangio’s stamp of approval, that in itself is extremely notable.
3. No Broncos on the COVID/reserve list
After tight end/fullback Andrew Beck was initially placed on the COVID/reserve list, zero Denver Broncos players have gone on the list and in fact, the entire NFL has experienced very positive results with testing and players avoiding contracting the coronavirus.
In terms of keeping the season on track to start on time and be carried through, this is one of the best developments not only in Denver but around the league.
It’s not unreasonable to think that every player and personnel member in the NFL will be off the COVID/reserve list by the time the season starts, which would be a huge win for all involved.
There was a pretty significant worry about the fact that these guys playing football against each other — obviously sharing air, swapping sweat, and making consistent close contact — would become a hotbed for the spreading of the virus.
At this particular point, it simply hasn’t, and that’s a testament to the way NFL players, coaches, and personnel are treating their off-field time.
It’s unlikely that everyone has been abiding by a strict set of rules all over the NFL, but there is plenty of evidence showing that the players are taking it very seriously and not putting themselves in a bad position.
Drew Lock has talked about having to adjust his personal life in order to really make the season work, and the Broncos stressed that early on in the camp process. As players reported for duty around the NFL, it’s not a huge surprise that a larger number of guys tested positive, but at this point in time, it looks like the Broncos have put a strong infrastructure in place to be able to pull off a full season amidst a pandemic.
1. No clarity at the CB3 position at this point
This is partly due to competition, and partly due to the cream not rising to the top early on.
This is not such a significant worry that the Broncos are going to have to clean house and make some kind of bold trade or anything (bringing in Logan Ryan isn’t going to kill anyone, though), but it’s a significant enough worry that it will be one of the biggest areas of focus heading into the next 10 days of practice.
Right now, we know that three players — Isaac Yiadom, De’Vante Bausby, and Davontae Harris — are vying for this role. Vic Fangio has talked about wanting two of those guys to really prove capable of being in this spot, and of course, because you’re always just one injury away, that makes sense.
The guy who has made the biggest splash at camp has been De’Vante Bausby, who had a string of practices early on where he was picking off at least a pass a day.
Yiadom was the starter at the end of the 2019 season, taking over for Davontae Harris, but both guys are young and talented and simply need to find consistency.
There are a couple of pieces of this that are worrisome or at the very least disappointing as well. Where is Duke Dawson? He’s one of a number of players I wish were making a bigger splash at camp.
In addition to Dawson not standing out, rookie Michael Ojemudia is missing time with a quad injury, and is going to likely need time to not only get healthy, but really re-enter that discussion in the first place.
2. Injuries are (of course) mounting
The Denver Broncos have been fortunate through the first 10 days of training camp to not have a rush of terrible injuries as many teams often do to open training camp each year.
The worst up to this point are tight end Austin Fort (knee) and linebacker Justin Strnad (wrist) who have suffered season-ending injuries, but even injuries that aren’t of the season-ending variety can be concerning especially with so little time to get ready for regular season action.
Todd Davis is working his way back from a calf injury, a concern because he injured his calf last year around this time as well.
The linebacker position has been depleted enough that the Broncos had to move Justin Hollins to inside linebacker.
The most significant injury that isn’t season-ending is a hamstring injury suffered by rookie receiver KJ Hamler. Hamler is expected to miss potentially close to a month with that injury, and of course, hamstring injuries for skill players have to be watched closely and treated with extreme caution.
If the timeline holds, Hamler’s injury would linger at least two games into the regular season.
It’s not atypical for training camp to bring unfortunate injury news, but it always creates a bit of worry even if injuries are opportunities for other players on the roster.
3. Getting nervous about roster cuts…
This may seem like a minor ‘worry’ in the grand scheme of things, but it’s hard to put together the pieces of a 53-man roster puzzle for the Denver Broncos right now.
The most worrisome spots on the roster right now have to be tight end, wide receiver, the defensive front seven, and even some players in the secondary.
Part of the worry comes from not knowing exactly which players are standing out above others, and part of it is simply not wanting to give up on guys who were high draft picks, are playing well, or have too much value even if it’s only to the Broncos to simply cut loose.
Things usually work out pretty well in terms of the Broncos getting their own guys back on waivers, but it doesn’t always go that way. You don’t want to cut a guy based simply on one camp and have him go on to be a star somewhere else. That’s a risk you always take when you’re trying to sneak guys onto the practice squad, but how do you cut a guy like Jake Butt or Troy Fumagalli?
How do you cut an Andrew Beck?
How do you decide if you’re going to keep six or seven wide receivers with Diontae Spencer as a return specialist?
The Broncos have so many tough decisions all over the roster and Vic Fangio alluded to the fact that they may need to do some projecting. Building a roster in the NFL, you obviously have to keep the best 53 guys who can help your team now, but there’s a balance with young players who are worth investing in their development.
It’s becoming clearer by the day that some players may not make the final Broncos’ roster who could get picked up by other teams around the league and the Broncos may have to watch them excel elsewhere after putting in the time to develop them.