Broncos Training Camp Observations: An important step forward

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Vic Fangio got away with his first afternoon practice. No rain.

That’s not to say the weather was perfect, though, as the afternoon sun had Dove Valley feeling more like Death Valley, according to one whiny media member (me.)

But amid the heat—and yes Fangio was still wearing his crewneck—the Broncos saw an important step forward.

Seeing Sanders

After five straight practices with their No. 1 receiver absent from everything but individual drills, Emmanuel Sanders was back on the field on Wednesday.

While it wasn’t 11-on-11 work, Sanders saw multiple reps in the first series of  7-on-7, and in his four plays on the field, he made two catches. One on and out-route towards the sideline and one on an in-cutting route in which Sanders dove for the ball to haul it in.

“When I got it, I said, ‘I’m back, baby!'” Sanders said of the catch with a big smile. “It felt good. I’m looking forward to tomorrow and keeping on getting better.”

“That’s the starting point,” said head coach Vic Fangio. “Hopefully, slowly, he’ll start doing more.”

Sanders looked fantastic during his limited work, just as he has in the individual drills. Of course, you don’t want to rush anything at all, because he is so valuable, but having 10 in the offense would go a long way towards getting them out of this rut. It would also be nice to see him start to build chemistry with Flacco.

“Hopefully in two or three weeks here, I will be full speed, and full-go all the way around,” he said.

Regardless of when he will be full-go, it was a very important step forward to to have Sanders back on the field during offense-defense work on Wednesday.

Heating things up

While the sun was cooking all in attendance, things got a little heated between the offense and defense for the first time all camp.

After multiple batted passes by the defensive line, Connor McGovern decided to take a stand.

“He wanted to jump up and bat the ball, and I didn’t want him to jump up and bat the ball, so I was holding him down,” explained McGovern of his disagreement with Derek Wolfe. “He didn’t like that very much.”

There was a brief scrum of pushing, shoving and yelling, and in the end, Wolfe emerged from the pile with McGovern’s helmet. He proceeded to huck it more than 30 yards.

As I told Wolfe later, it was one of the best throws of camp.

“That’s just Derek being Derek,” McGovern said with a laugh. “He wanted to put a little pizzazz on the end of it.”

The laugh was a symbol McGovern’s attitude towards the kerfuffle. As he told us after practice, he and Wolfe are the type of guys who can go at it in practice and laugh about it after.

But it wasn’t a laughing matter to Vic Fangio, who stepped in to break things up later in the practice when another dust-up occurred. With Vic shutting it down, the mix-up lasted no more than five seconds.

Asked after practice if he minds a little skirmish here and there, the head coach wasted no time.

“I do,” he said in a tone that conveyed his displeasure. “We talked about it. I don’t like it. There’s no need for it. We need to refrain from that, and we’ve talked about it.”

Knowing what we know about the respect for Vic Fangio out on that field, it may be a while before you see any more physical disagreements.

Offensive update

Because so much of the discussion surrounding the Broncos over the past couple days has been about the offensive struggles, it wouldn’t be an observations piece if we didn’t give an update on how the unit looked on Wednesday.

To my eyes, things looked a tad bit better. When I talked to Zac about it, though, he wasn’t as encouraged. As we compared notes, here’s what I came away with as to why we weren’t on the same page.

• There was no consistency for the first-team, as there were still issues with drops, sacks and batted balls, which makes it completely fair why Zac didn’t think they took a step forward.
• With that being said, the offense was finally able to open things up for a couple of big plays and a couple of plays where things just looked in-sync.
  • One the first play of the day, Flacco hit Courtland Sutton on a textbook, play-action, hit-the-back-foot-and-let-it-go pass that marked one of the first plays all camp where everything just went according to plan. While it was only 15 yards, it was encouraging to see.
  • Later, toward the end of practice, as Noah Fant galloped along the right sideline, Flacco lobbed in a feathery pass right into the basket, allowing Fant to catch the ball in stride 20 yards down the field and take off running.
    • It was the second nice play of the day for Fant, who earlier got separation from a linebacker on a crosser over the middle, hauled in a pass, and turned on the jets up the far sideline for a big gain.
  • Phillip Lindsay also broke a big run for the first time since practice No. 1.
• The other thing that I think had me in a more positive mindset is that both Kevin Hogan and Drew Lock had solid days, with Lock making some really nice throws to the middle of the field, and neither throwing an interception.
  • This was the one thing that Zac and I both agreed on.

My conclusion: The bar for the offense through five practices was very low. Just seeing them hit some plays on time and get the crowd involved had me feeling slightly encouraged.

With that said, it was not what one would call a “good” day for the offense, and it certainly wasn’t their first “win” of camp.

Make of that what you will.

Other notes

• Jake Butt missed yet another practice on Wednesday.
  • After practice Vic Fangio said, “He’s hit a little pothole here in his road to recovery, but I don’t think it’s anything too, too serious at this point. He could be out here tomorrow, or he could be another day or two.”
• After Juwann Winfree missed his second-straight practice, Fangio said he “thinks”  Winfree will practice on Thursday, but not to hold him to that.
• DaeSean Hamilton tweaked his hamstring early in practice and did not return to the field afterward.
• With new competition in Justin Vogel, who is huge, on the field with him, punter Colby Wadman seemed to turn things up a notch.
• Khalfani Muhammad continues to impress me with his speed and vision. He could find a way onto this team if he has a big preseason.
• Issac Yiadom is another guy who continues to make plays out there. In my opinion, he’s the second-year player who has displayed the most improvement.