News and notes from Day 12 of Broncos Camp

The Broncos returned to their practice field today after their 30-9 victory over the 49ers in the preseason opener. Today’s practice was a non-padded ramp-up practice before they have a padded practice tomorrow and another joint practice with the Cardinals on Thursday.

In today’s news and notes, we have Bo Nix and the first-team offense continuing to struggle(still too early to panic), Payton praises rookie running back R.J. Harvey, A.T. Perry is removed from the PUP, Bonitto misses practice (he’s fine), news and notes, more injury updates, tweets from camp, quotes, and more!

Nix and the first-team offense continue to struggle

The Broncos’ first-team offense had a disappointing performance during the second half of the joint practice on Thursday, and that continued through their game on Saturday. After a solid showing during the 7-on-7 period, Nix and the first-team offense did not have their best day during the move-the-ball team drills.

The first team drill featured the defense blitzing, and Jonathon Cooper and Alex Singleton quickly getting into the backfield and pressuring Nix. Cooper would continue to get into the backfield and just disrupt every play. In the next team period, it was a red zone drill, and on the first play, Nix missed Sutton, who was well covered by Riley Moss. In a later play, Cooper beat Frank Crum, and Nix had to throw the ball away, and Nix would miss Franklin, who was well covered by McMillian.

In the final move the ball period, the Broncos were down three points and had to drive down the field to either win the game or attempt the game-tying field goal. On the first play, Nix hit Adam Trautman for 15 yards and would later hit Franklin for a decent gain, and he would get out of bounds. They’re now in field goal range, and he would hit Marvin Mims for a 5-yard gain and got out of bounds. We’re not at a 3rd and 5 with 23 seconds left with a 47-yard or so field goal, but unfortunately for Nix, he would throw an interception in the end zone. On this play, Nix rolled out of the pocket and threw a jump ball to wide receiver Michael Bandy with McMillian in coverage, and he went up and made the easy interception. (Thanks to the guys at DNVR for detailing what happened during these drives)

This was a poor decision by Nix and, frankly, an out-of-character one. The offense was in field goal range, and he didn’t need to attempt such an aggressive throw at that moment. It ended what was turning into a much-needed positive moment for the Broncos’ offense.

We have to keep in mind, this is just one practice, one bad decision, and Nix should learn and grow from this. Not what you want to see after how the offense looked in the preseason, but it’s still August 12th, and we have a long way to go. A padded practice tomorrow, a joint practice on Thursday, and likely the starters’ last preseason action before the regular season this Saturday. These three practices/games will mean a lot more than this non-padded practice. If the struggles continue, then we can officially hit the panic button.

Plus, it’s Sean Payton’s offense, and we saw what Nix is capable of last season. Things will be okay.

After practice, Nix met with Kay Adams on her Up & Adams show and dismissed the idea that he and the offense had a good practice today. He said, starting with him, he said the energy could have been better today, he could have done his job better, and that “until it’s perfect, it’s not done well enough”.

Again, the struggles are not what you want to see, but you have to like his attitude and know he, the rest of the offense, as well as Sean Payton, will get things corrected and moving forward.

Head Coach Sean Payton on WR Devaughn Vele’s progression

“I’ve said this before, even a year ago, he’s extremely smart so he can play a lot of the positions. He’s a good blocker. I like his size, and so it’s a good chess piece for us the things that he does well. Certainly [it is] Year 2 for him, but Year 1 was accelerated learning for him as well. Even last year, we found him playing more than just one position. Sometimes that’s not the case, but he’s doing well. Part of it is the maintenance on his knee, making sure he’s fresh. It’s a little bit easier to maintain in-season than when you’re just stacking day after day in training camp. So we’ll continue to find his spots. He’s a big target on third down and in the red zone.”

Head Coach Sean Payton on what he has seen from CB Kris Abrams-Draine

“He’s smart, he has really good ball skills. He’s one of those players that, someone brought it up at the beginning of training camp, the tail end of last year his play and his confidence… You can have a stretch of four weeks, and all of a sudden that can carry over into the next year. He’s someone that prefers to play off and keep the ball in front, break on the ball. I like his ball skills, and I like between the ears. He’s very, very smart.”

Head Coach Sean Payton on the starters’ performance against the 49ers

“I think defensively, the first drive obviously you don’t want to see a score. The third-down play was a significant play that led to that touchdown. We bounced back pretty quickly. Offensively, we’ll clean some things up. Overall, there were a lot of positives overall grading the week. What I mean by that is Thursday’s practice was pretty long, maybe a little longer than I would’ve liked, and then the turnaround and then the game on Saturday. There were a number of things when we put the film on that we felt we did really well situationally. Then there were a handful of things that we didn’t do as well. We need to get our alignments cleaned up on offense. There was a penalty thrown. I’m glad it happens in a joint practice. You don’t want it to happen in Week 10 in a game that matters. Clearly for us, there was plenty to coach off of, and there were a lot of reps to coach off of. I thought our depth showed up well. You come away with the four takeaways. The field position, how we handled the end of the half, I liked that sequence. We scored defensively in the two-minute, they elected to run it, we called the timeouts, got the ball back, scored again and started with the ball. So situationally there were a lot of things we could point at. Then on both fields Thursday, there were situations that came up that we’re working on right now that you see [Director of Game Management/OL Assistant] Evan Rothstein installs each night. We went through just a couple of them right there. These come up in the games. They’re not guaranteed to come up each game. Some might come up every three years, some might come up more frequently. Educating the team to become situationally smarter than the rest I think is important, and a lot of that came up during the weekend.”

Head Coach Sean Payton on what he wants to see from P Jeremy Crawshaw

“It’s just gameday experience. It was funny, both he and [San Francisco 49ers punter] [Thomas] Morstead were there. I told you guys I had the chance to draft him in New Orleans in 2009. I don’t know what year it is for him now, 18? He was a fifth-round pick, and he came up to me afterwards and just went on about having a chance to meet our guy and then watch his flexibility. He just said—and Thomas has done this long enough—he said, ‘Man, you really got a good one.’ So it’s working through some of those things that we do with rookies. You guys see it, and him getting used to the game situations. He has a bright future.”

Head Coach Sean Payton on seeing what RB RJ Harvey could do in his first preseason game

“At the end of the day, the great skillset he has is that ability, speed wise to… but he can get through the line of scrimmage the same way. There was one where we felt like, ‘Trust it, be a little bit more patient.’ He’s an extremely instinctive runner. We’re going to get a number of looks to see him between the tackles. It’s all there on college tape and the best thing is that he’s such a willing learner. He’s very, not critical of himself, but man he wants to please and he’s very coachable. There are certain runs, as we get into looking at Arizona’s front and what we want to feature that I think he’ll be comfortable with.”

WR/STer Trent Sherfield on whether being a special teams player helped him in the league

“Yeah, absolutely. The undrafted guys who are here now, ‘Court Jack’ (WR Courtney Jackson), [WR] Kyrese [Rowan], ‘JD’ [WR Joaquin Davis], all those guys—even [WR Jerjuan] Newton. We’ve had conversations, and they’ve asked me questions about ‘What is it like being undrafted?’ ‘What is it like starting from behind?’. That’s one of the many things that I talk to them about, being able to show your value on special teams. Another thing is you can come out here as an undrafted player and have a great camp day after day, but you’ve got to be able to do it again and again. You’ve got to be able to have that alternate play on special teams as well. You have to be able to have that because there are so many odds that are stacked against you. There are a lot of things that went well for me, and I was blessed with the opportunity while I was in Arizona. I didn’t have a number of receivers that were in front of me. We had [Former NFL Wide Receiver] Larry Fitzgerald Jr. and [Texans Wide Receiver] Christian Kirk, but there was space and opportunity for me to be able to crack the roster and make the team. [Cardinals Assistant Head Coach and Special Teams Coordinator] Jeff Rodgers, who is coming into town here shortly, was a big advocate for me on special teams. There are a lot of things that have to go right, but I just try to tell those guys, ‘You just got to control what you can control.’ You can’t control if the ball doesn’t come your way, you can’t control if you’re in on a play and it’s drawn up for you. The only thing you can control is knowing the playbook, lining up, doing your assignment and executing it. I just try to tell those guys, ‘Never make the same mistake twice.’ We have had great conversations.”

CB Pat Surtain II on his role as a team leader

“Taking on that role, there is always room for growth. With me, it’s definitely being more vocal. Expressing to guys not to get complacent and to always look to get better—a step better—because in this league it’s like you can’t take weeks off. You have to focus on sharpening your skill set at the end of the day. My job is to make sure the guys are on top of that. I always learn in this league now taking on that leadership role and that captain role. I know that me being more of a vocal presence helps a lot.”

CB Pat Surtain II on if the pass rush allows the secondary to be more aggressive

“You can definitely sense that in a way. Without rush, we are open to doing anything. Those guys are getting back there as soon as the quarterback hikes the ball and makes my job much easier. So there are definitely a lot of variables that play a part in what defense to run with our front seven. It definitely allows us to be more aggressive and be more open to things defensively.”