Editor’s note: With the Broncos and Bears splitting their respective offense and defense between two the fields at the UC Health Training center, we split up to have one pair of eyes on each field at all times. In this piece, we focused on the Broncos defense.

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Torched. Burned. Toasted.

Pick your poison. Those were the words used by those who watched the Broncos defense attempt to cover the Chicago Bears’ strong contingent of tight ends—featuring former second-round pick Adam Shaheen and former Eagle Trey Burton—on Wednesday.

“They couldn’t cover a tight end to save their life,” said one media member.

“If you were a tight end for the Bears, you had a great day,” said another.

By all accounts, it was ugly.

Interestingly enough, the Broncos weren’t all that upset or concerned about what happened. Not because they’re okay with getting smoked, but for another reason.

Here’s why.

Tightening Things Up

As the outside world shredded the Broncos’ defense following the sketchy performance in the joint practice, those inside of the building were watching film.

Having seen a plethora of new looks from the Bears on the day, there was plenty to learn. As they watched their own tail kicking, their coaches meticulously explained why exactly they got their tails kicked.

“It was mistakes in the back end that we didn’t execute,” Vance Joseph said after watching the film.

After seeing that film, the team headed back out onto the field for their afternoon walkthrough. At about 10 percent speed, the defense went over the plays in which they got gashed, “executing” each one perfectly multiple times.

When they got on the field on Thursday, they put that work to work.

On the very first play of the team period, Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky targeted a tight end in Burton in the left flat. The pass was completed, but as soon as he made the catch, Brandon Marshall was there, stopping him at the line for no gain.

On the next series, Trubisky dropped back and instantly looked left for Shaheen, as he wound up to throw, safety Will Parks, who was anticipating a throw to the tight end, broke on the route, stepping in front of Shaheen and getting his hands on what would have been an 80-yard pick six had it not slipped through his hands.

Later, during a third-down situational period, it was Tramaine Brock who had a stuff of a tight end, playing good coverage and forcing him out of bounds before the marker. In the same period, Zaire Anderson had a pass breakup on a tight-end target.

All in all, the first-team defense responded to the tight-end issues in a big way, with the only “big play” that went to a tight end being a touchdown to Burton in the back of the end zone. The only problem was that the play was one, a delay of game and two, likely would have been a Bradley Chubb sack had he been able to actually hit the quarterback.

The second-team defense still did struggle with the tight ends, but not nearly to the “terrible” levels of Wednesday.

“Better. A lot better.” Joseph said of the second team. “Obviously, seeing the plays for the second day, their assignments were better. Still wasn’t perfect, but it was better.”

In the end, the progression from Wednesday to Thursday is what these joint practices are all about. You see something you aren’t used to seeing, and when you mess up, you have a chance to fix it. Now, the Bears will likely have some new looks in their pocket for the game on Saturday, and the Broncos will have to adjust to those much faster.

Pressure Cooker

During one of the first periods of 11-on-11 work, the Bears faces a 3rd-and-long. As Trubisky called for the snap, it came out low, forcing him to drop his hands and his eyes as he attempted to grab the ball. By the time he caught the ball at his shoe strings and looked up, all he could see was Von Miller’s white jersey bearing down on him. As fast as he could, Trubisky chucked the ball to the right sideline, over the head of his receiver.

“Good Lord,” exclaimed one Chicago reporter next to me.

“This is a rare chance to see this Von Miller in a practice, ” I told him. “This is usually reserved for Sundays.”

It only got better from there.

In every single period of 11-on-11 work, Miller had at least one pressure and often had more than that.

During the third-down situational period, as defensive coordinator Joe Woods rattled off pressure look after pressure look, Miller had two sacks. The first came on 3rd-and-2 as he smoked right tackle Bobby Massie and the second came on 3rd-and-5, as Miller beat Massie on the inside with a spin move.

On the next set of third downs, Shane Ray took his turn coming off of the right side of the offensive line. On 3rd-and-5, Ray cruised around the outside for the sack. Then, on 3rd-and-8, He came through the inside of the line for another.

Bradley Chubb added two sacks of his own on the day and the Broncos, as a team, had 10.

It was a true display of what this group of pass rushers can do. Out of 15 third-down plays, as Woods threw the kitchen sink at Chicago, the Broncos got the stop on 11.

Also on the subject of pressure, during a one-on-one pass rush period, the Broncos outside linebackers and defensive lineman abused the Bears’ offensive line. Now, this drill favors the pass rush because the snap is always on one and the OL has no help from their teammates, something that defensive coordinators spend their entire offseason trying to figure out how to make happen just a couple times in a game.

The standouts in the drill, on top of Von Miller, of course, were Shelby Harris and Zach Kerr, both of which won all three of their reps.

Bear Trap

After giving up a cut-back run for a gain of eight and a stretch run to the left for another gain of eight early in the practice, the Broncos laid out the Bear traps.

Throughout the rest of the practice, the Broncos strung together run stuff after run stuff. Todd Davis, Zach Kerr, Adam Gotsis, Shane Ray, Bradley Chubb, Von Miller—each of those guys had a run stop at or behind the line of scrimmage on the day.

For a team with some notable running backs—Jordan Howard and Tarik Cohen being the main names—the Broncos made it hard for any of the bunch to stand out at all over the course of the two days of practice.

On one concerning note in terms of the running game, the Broncos allowed Mitch Trubisky to get out and run too often on the day. On multiple occasions, as Von Miller put an inside move on the right tackle, Trubisky was able to escape to the right side and run for a first down.

Other Notes

• Zach Kerr has had a—extremely sneaky—great camp. He looks strong and mobile and brings great energy to each and every practice.
• Shelby Harris is another guy who has had a great camp. He’s even lined up at the nose a couple of times, and won a couple of one-on-ones from that position today.
  • Fun fact: Today marked the end of Harris’ fifth training camp as a pro. In that time, he has never missed a single training camp practice.
• The absence of Chris Harris on the defense wasn’t felt too much in Thursday’s practice as Trubisky didn’t target his wideouts very often.
  • Allen Robinson did beat Tramaine Brock for a touchdown on the day.

Play of The Day

On the same play that Shane Ray had his second sack of the day, a hilarious exchange went down.

It should be noted that after a QB is “sacked” in a training camp practice, everyone kind of slows up and the QB continues to go through his reads and make a throw.

Well, after Ray sacked Bears QB Chase Daniel, he went to make a throw and Broncos’ DL Adam Gotsis skied into the air and knocked it down with both paws.

Daniel was quite upset by this, calling Gotsis a bunch of names and making me laugh quite hard.

It was really great.

Injury and Availability Notes

• Shamarko Thomas left practice due to the heat and is expected to be fine moving forward.
• Menelik Watson had an MRI Thursday morning on his strained pectoral muscle that has kept him out of multiple practices. The team is awaiting the results.
• Troy Fumagalli missed another practice Thursday. Joseph said, “he’s really sore.” This is the same soreness he had in the spring, and the team does not know his timeline.
• Chris Harris Jr. is day-to-day with his strained oblique. He was held out of practice Thursday for a second-straight day for precautionary reasons. Joseph is optimistic he’ll be ready to play Saturday against the Bears.
• Su’a Cravens, Shaq Barrett, Michael Hunter, Dymonte Thomas, J.J. Dielman and Sam Jones also did not practice on Thursday.