It’s All Orange, Fat Man: 08/02/16


Coach’s Thoughts:

One of my fellow position coaches went to see the Denver Broncos training camp yesterday. Which first and foremost must be stated, he is one of the most energetic, talkative, and fun-to-be-around guys that I have ever known. The Offensive GA and I got to talk with him about what he thought of the Broncos. Here were some of his thoughts on what he saw:

  • Paxton Lynch will become the starter late in the year. According to his account, Lynch throws a better ball and can move really well. He doesn’t think fans and the coaching staff will be able to put up with Mark’s turnovers. Coach noted that there were a lot of people getting after Mark after he threw an INT in camp. “Jesus Christ, you want to can him already?” was his slightly paraphrased response.
  • The Bronco TE’s, while already being disadvantaged in pass pro versus DEs. are handicapped by the lack of practice time against pass rushers. The coach noticed that the TEs were getting a lot of work in 7 on 7’s and route running but, did not rotate with the OL in 1 on 1’s vs DL or pass pro drills. He inquired with one of the Bronco coaches about why they structured practice that way. The Bronco coach responded, “They hardly block anymore on pass plays, coach.” Enter my thoughts: The Broncos run their amount of play pass and 7 man protections which I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes up 20% of their offense. I have also seen many a TE last year get beat by the like of Khalil Mack, etc. Virgil Green is the only body on the roster, not part of the OL, who counts as an edge blocker and he’s only really good at blocking when he can take guys downhill. I personally think that if teams are smart enough to get an edge rusher on one of the Bronco TE’s, they will see results come from their pass rush.
  • Emmanuel Sanders looks really good, Demaryius Thomas can go either way. From what coach watched on the sidelines, even though Emmanuel and Demaryius both did not participate when he saw them, he could tell that Emmanuel Sanders “can go” just from “seeing him bullshit around on the sideline.” Take with that as much as you will. He commented Demaryius Thomas is naturally a big-boned athlete and it takes away from some of his abilities as a receiver because he has to move more weight around ie. elusiveness, lateral speed, route-running, etc. Demaryius, from what he knows of him, is a good-natured “Georgia Boy” at heart but when it comes to nitty-gritty situations, doesn’t know whether he can persevere through sometimes. Use the first New England game last year as an example.
  • He remembers recruting Devontae Booker when he was coming out of American River JC a couple of years ago and he had really, really bad grades. The grades were so bad that ultimately every school that recruited him from the FCS level either pulled their offer or didn’t even touch him at all after seeing his transcript. Which is incredibly puzzling considering he got accepted into the University of Utah, a competitive Division I school with an average GPA of 3.55. I neglected to ask why he got in, but I assume it was because someone found a loophole or someone overlooked an admission requirement they weren’t supposed to. Devontae is probably a good man with good leadership qualities considering he was a team captain at Utah. Just keep in mind that he may have not been the brightest bulb in the academic facilities.
  • Coach also liked DL #90 (Kyle Peko) on the field. He said he moves well and made a couple of great plays during camp that he really liked.

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