On the day he agreed to become a Bronco, Jerry Rice was all about fitting in.
He said he has no plans to ask veteran wide receiver Rod Smith for jersey No. 80, even though Rice wore that number his first 20 NFL seasons.
Rice also doesn’t need to be the center of the offense.
“I’m not trying to catch 12-14 balls a game,” he told the NFL Network on Wednesday. “I’m just trying to contribute.”
Which is why Broncos coach Mike Shanahan courted him. But Rice’s role is yet to be determined. All indications are the top-three receiver jobs – held by Rod Smith, Ashley Lelie and Darius Watts – are filled.
When quarterback Jake Plummer was asked Wednesday if he would feel pressure to throw to Rice, he answered: “No. Maybe if I’d been throwing to him for a long time. But my order goes Rod, Ashley and Darius or whoever is after that.
“But Rod is my No. 1 man and Ashley next. So unless Jerry comes in and has some amazing burst of youth that we haven’t seen, I really don’t think he would surpass any of those guys.”
But Plummer said Rice still could be a factor, though he had only 30 catches for 429 yards and three touchdowns last season with Oakland and Seattle.
“He still demands respect,” Plummer said. “People are still going to have to guard him because he can get open, he has great hands.”
Plummer has gone out of his way to praise Watts this offseason, predicting the second-year receiver is ready for a big year, even though Watts was inconsistent as a rookie and had only four receptions in his final four regular-season games. It’s not hard to imagine Rice supplanting Watts as Denver’s third receiver, especially if Watts drops passes as he did as a rookie.
But Watts doesn’t plan to let that happen.
“I don’t make excuses as a receiver,” Watts said Monday. “You’ve got to catch every ball. There are no excuses. I’m just making sure I’m working hard and I’ll keep working to get better at that.”
Where the Broncos really need to improve is the red zone inside the opponent’s 20-yard line. They finished the 2004 regular season ranked 28th in red- zone production, scoring a touchdown from there only 45.3 percent of the time.
Lelie enjoyed a breakout season with 54 receptions for 1,084 yards and seven touchdowns, but he had only one catch for 8 yards inside the red zone.
Plummer threw to Lelie only eight times inside the 20, compared with the 20 red-zone passes he threw to Smith.
Plummer threw only nine red- zone passes to Watts. Watts caught two, including one for a touchdown, but also dropped three potential touchdown passes in the end zone.
Seattle quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who played with Rice for the team’s final 12 games of the 2004 season, after Rice was traded from Oakland, said Wednesday that Rice could help Denver’s red-zone offense.
“If I saw him in the end zone and knew I could get the ball to him, would I be confident he’d make the big catch?” Hasselbeck said. “Absolutely.”
Nate Jackson could be competing with Rice for a spot on the roster. But Jackson said he’s thrilled to have Rice as a teammate and mentor.
“I know that he’s a great player on and off the field,” Jackson said. “We can all learn so much for him that I think we’d all welcome him here.”
