Elway on Shane Ray: “He plays with his hair on fire.”

John Elway said that Shane Ray is just a “22 year old kid that made a mistake.” It’s very apparent that Elway loved Shane Ray from the moment that they first scouted him. Elway said that Ray was the 10^th overall rated player on the Denver Broncos draft board and even said that he thought it was “too good to be true” that he was still available at 23.

Kubiak said that he felt great about Shane Ray from the very beginning. When he was asked if he grades defensive players based on how much he’d hate to prepare for them, he said, “I wouldn’t even like to practice against him.”

Elway thought that he showed a lot of maturity and said that Shane Ray didn’t hide from his off-field transgressions. He took responsibility for his actions and he went to Chicago and faced the music.

John Elway ended by saying, “We really loved the deal with Detroit and we just couldn’t wait any longer.” He also added that Detroit really wanted Manny Ramirez and that they had been talking with Detroit for the past week about making this move.

This was clearly a guy that the Broncos wanted all along and I would go as far as to say that the way Shane Ray handled himself throughout this week made him even more desirable to the Broncos brass.

It wasn’t the end of the press conference that caught my attention though, it was the beginning. Elway opened by saying, “He plays with his hair on fire.” After watching the tape on Ray, I can’t think of a better description.

Sounds pretty awesome to me.

For more draft coverage check out the BSN Denver Draft Center!