DENVER — For the Broncos, safety in the midst of the novel-coronavirus pandemic must come first. All of the protocols established around their team headquarters reflect this.
Some of them have unintended consequences. The clear barriers in the locker room could also be considered barriers to the team-building process that takes place at this time of year in every training camp.
No more leaning close to see what’s on a teammate’s cell phone. No more lounging on the sofa in the middle of the locker room. No more games of Connect Four with pieces that are as large as the palm of one’s hand.
“With training camp, we’re up here 12 or 13 hours out of the day, and with that being said, there is a lot of downtime that we usually used to play cards, play dominoes, sit around the locker room and just talk and just enjoy each other’s company,” wide receiver Courtland Sutton said. “With that going on, with social distancing, it’s affected it a little bit.”
It goes beyond the locker room, too. No longer can you pull together tables in the cafeteria to have a group of 10 or more players gathered to enjoy lunch together.
“It’s different because we go into the cafeteria and you can only have a certain amount of people in there,” quarterback Drew Lock said last week during a media conference call. “If I’m doing this Zoom call, then I’m going to go shower, the cafeteria’s full because we’re taking the correct precautions around here, I technically can’t sit by Jerry [Jeudy]. I couldn’t sit by K.J. [Hamler].”
Sure, the Broncos practice together and sit in their position-group meetings with proper social distance. But a sizable chunk of the 12-plus hours referenced by Sutton saw players bonding socially.
So how do you that now?
First of all, you keep the conversation going, even with six feet of separation.
“You can still have a conversation with somebody from six feet,” Sutton said. “It’s less standing next to someone, but we’re still able to communicate and build that bond.”
It’s not just life itself that finds a way, as noted in “Jurassic Park” 27 years ago. It is the social aspects of life, the ones that make it worth living. Adapting to the reality is no different in the locker room and around UCHealth Training Center than it is on the practice field and in the world at large.
“This is new for everybody,” Broncos coach Vic Fangio said. “Nobody has experience in this, and I always like to say, ‘The great ones can I-and-A it, which means ‘improvise and adjust,’ and we want to be a bunch of great ones here and excel at improvising and adjusting.
“There’s no wiggle room. The protocols are what they are. We’ve got to abide by them and move past it.”
In the position meeting rooms, the desks sit farther apart. Masks are mandatory. The learning — and the bonding – continue apace.
“Even when we go to the classrooms, there is a certain amount of people that are allowed in there,” Sutton said. “Really, it’s going to come from us being on the field, being able to build a relationship out there, show them that I’m here, I’m ready and I’m prepared. They’re going to show me the same thing so we can earn each other’s respect. Then after the respect is earned, that’s when the friendship comes. That’s when we can really start to talk and get to know each other.”
The changes to the in-person meetings are less jarring than those the Broncos experienced when two months of OTAs became a “virtual” offseason. In that time, the coaches confronted the challenge of making meetings engaging for their players in different ways.
For Sutton and the wide receivers, position coach Zach Azzanni turned to game shows for his inspiration. When it came time to quiz players, Azzanni had his players team up for a game show of sorts.
“After we installed a certain amount, we started doing Jeopardy!” Sutton said. “And we’ll do Jeopardy! on formations, Jeopardy! on pass concepts, Jeopardy! for run concepts, just different things to break the monotony of sitting there staring at a screen and having someone talk to us about different plays.”
Even in a normal offseason, the receivers would have faced more mental work than usual. That was due to the time they needed to absorb the concepts of new offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur’s scheme.
“There was a lot of learning to go into it, but having Coach Z break it up for us and do Jeopardy!, it was a good breakup from us sitting there, staring at the screen and trying to learn an offense. It brought a fun aspect to it, and I know the guys enjoyed it, I enjoyed it, it was just something different that we did to kind of just help us learn.”
At first, the young players and veterans finished in a tie, Sutton noted. But the winner ends up being the offense as a whole when that knowledge is applied to the field.
“We all know the offense pretty well,” Sutton said. “It was cool to break up the monotony of staring at a screen for two hours.”
Nowadays, there is anything but monotony. After months of waiting, the Broncos are back together. And when they pass through the sanitization misters and hit the practice field, they find an oasis of normalcy, from the work they do to the trash-talking
“The easiest conversations have been standing outside six feet apart giving Jerry some crap about the Missouri-Alabama game and talking to all the guys about some college stuff because they just left from there,” Lock aid.
So even as they must adjust, the Broncos are finding ways to play games, come together and have fun as they work — just like any other year.
Dominoes are out; Jeopardy! is in. The end result could be the same: a team on the same page, ready to play.
“Everybody’s having to make adjustments around the league and around the world,” Sutton said. “and we’re trying to do our part, and making sure that just because we are being allowed to come into the facility and play ball, we’re not ignoring that part of what’s going on around the world, and trying to do our part.
“We haven’t been able to play cards and dominoes and play the games in our spare time, but we’re finding different ways to keep that bond-building going on. It’s just different, but it’s different everywhere, and we understand that.”
