Attendance
PUP — OL Nick Gargiulo.
IR — DL Matt Henningsen and OL Michael Deiter.
Did not practice — OLB Drew Sanders, C Alex Forsyth, ILB Levelle Bailey, WR Michael Bandy, TE Caleb Lohner.
The Broncos had the same list of players miss practice on Wednesday as the day before. Wide receiver Marvin Mims Jr. and center Luke Wattenberg each participated in the early portions of practice but then did conditioning work on the side field during team periods. Given the slow ramp-up for those players, it would be a surprise if they played Friday night against Green Bay. Overall, though, the Broncos appear to be in line to have more players available for their second preseason game than their first. Then itap just a matter of the team deciding who plays and who doesn’t.
Jaylen Waddle beats his old teammate for a touchdown
Want to know how good Pat Surtain II is?
He gave up one big play in practice Tuesday and most of his chat with reporters afterward included questions about what happened.
Surtain is widely regarded as the best cornerback in football, so the inquiry was more about whether Waddle talked trash and what Surtain tries to take from the rare practice misstep.
“Itap practice. At the end of the day, we’re out here getting better,” Surtain said. “Itap going to be plays like that that happen — you’re going to make plays, sometimes plays like that happen. .. Itap definitely something you can learn from.”
The play itself was a beauty for the offense. Quarterback Bo Nix had time to step up in the pocket and pat the ball multiple times before uncorking a rainbow that traveled 50-plus yards in the air up the right sideline to Waddle, who was a full stride past Surtain.
Itap a reminder, mostly, of the multidimensional threat Waddle provides. He consistently creates separation from defensive backs on underneath and intermediate routes. He stops and starts with the best pass-catchers in football. But he also has the long speed to run away from the fastest corners, too.
Offensive coordinator Davis Webb on Tuesday summed it up easily when asked if Waddle needed more time on the practice field — he missed more than a week with a muscle strain — with Bo Nix to create chemistry before the regular season.
Webb pointed to the time the pair and several others spent in Austin, Texas, this summer, as well as their meeting time, as beneficial for communication.
“Timing-wise, that guy’s going to be open and we’re going to throw to him,” Webb said.
Waddle’s already shown the ability to get open at all levels of the field against a talented Broncos secondary, including its best player, Surtain.
“Yeah, I mean, he’s fast,” Surtain said. “He’s pretty fast.”
Thumbs Up
Sticky fingers. Waddle made the play of the day, but the Broncos defense once again was more than up to the task, broadly speaking. Over the course of practice, the defense continually made life difficult on the offense, stopped a pair of two-minute situations and — in a continuation of a trend throughout training camp — took the ball away.
First, second-year outside linebacker Que Robinson picked off Jarrett Stidham on a pass to the flat that likely would have been returned for a touchdown. Stidham had an offensive lineman pushed back into his lap and couldn’t get a clean throw off for Jaleel McLaughlin in the flat.
Later, in the two-minute drill, the situation was end-of-half in a tie game, so the offense was looking for a touchdown but willing to take any points. Sam Ehlinger started a drive in good shape with a 22-yard completion to Cam Ross and a 4-yard gain out of bounds to tight end Nate Adkins.
He tried Adkins down the right sideline on second-and-6 with 30 seconds left, though, and substantially underthrew the ball. Cornerback Kris Abrams-Draine easily picked the pass off, ending practice.
Thumbs Down
When the No. 1 offense had its turn in the two-minute in the same set of circumstances, the drive quickly turned into a slog. Nix opened the drive with a completion to Waddle, but would likely have been sacked by Nik Bonitto on the next play. Instead, he was credited with a throwaway that stopped the clock. The offense used its last timeout after a 6-yard completion to Adam Trautman, who was tackled in bounds with 33 seconds left. The next completion was also tackled in bounds, but instead of spiking the ball, Nix snapped it again and hit Courtland Sutton for 25 yards down to the 23-yard line. Except without a timeout, the clock ran out before Nix could get another snap off. Two drives for the offense where three points would be a fine outcome, but zero points on the board.
“It’ll be good film to look at,” Payton said. … “I’m anxious to watch the film. There’s that cutoff with the clock and then the yards (of the play before). Sometimes itap impossible. But that was a ‘down, down’ (for Sutton) and then itap a sprint, get set. How fast can we do that and get the ball on the ground?”
Odds and Ends
* The plan for Friday against Green Bay is for Nix to play about 14 plays, Payton said Wednesday. Payton had already said last week that Nix was in line to make his debut and that the plan was similar to the one the Broncos had last week in Atlanta for the starters who played.
* One day after the Broncos had a big scuffle — Sean Payton’s term Wednesday — cooler heads prevailed. Payton said he watched the video of the incident after practice and then, in the evening, addressed his team on a related matter. This fall, the New York replay office is able to review fights, scuffles, kerfuffles, and all manner of extracurricular activities and will have the authority to eject players upon review. Payton showed examples of situations and told his players it will be more difficult to get away with being the instigator or with any involvement in a fight.
Then he had a message about the group’s scuffle earlier in the day.
“Just let me know the game where we’re fighting and then obviously we’re not as concerned about winning that game,” Payton said. “Then I can kind of measure up the (other) head coach, see where we go and we can all get ejected. The games are too important.”
* Cornerback Reese Taylor is an interesting conversation in terms of the 53-man roster. The club clearly likes him. He spent the stretch run of the regular season last year on the active roster and became a special teams regular. But the Broncos are also deep in the secondary and have a No. 2 nickel in Jahdae Barron, plus coverage on their outside corners in Barron and Abrams-Draine. Taylor made a heck of a play Wednesday in team drills, knocking a ball away from Cam Ross. It would have been close on whether Ross controlled the catch first, but the defense reacted as if it were a forced fumble.
