Competition, Injuries Shake Up the Depth Chart

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Again, not enough hours in the day to get my Hall of Fame posts out… sorry for the inconvenience. I will have all 3 in the next 2 days though, seeing as I have Friday off work completely. I pushed back the Zimmerman post because I felt this was worth posting. Straight from the past few days of camp reports courtesy Andrew Mason, including today’s morning report.

I reported in this morning’s Quick Hits that the Broncos were reeling from 27 absentees yesterday during either the morning or afternoon practice – that’s quite a lot of rehab being done by the Denver doctors (although many of these absences were simple afternoon breaks for our deserving veterans). Combined with the heavy level of competition, the depth chart has seen some surprising changes so far.

Offensive Line – With injuries to both Matt Lepsis and Ben Hamilton (groin pull and concussion, respectively), the left side of our offensive line hasn’t been the source of stability lately that Broncos fans would like. Neither will play in San Francisco on Monday Night. Yesterday, Erik Pears resumed his duties as Lepsis’ main backup, with center/guard hybrid Chris Myers moving up to LG from the second team. Today, Adam Meadows gave the left tackle spot a try, and Ryan Harris saw himself sidelined with an unspecified back injury. Pears moved back over to right tackle, where he is slated to start.

While those moves were a product of injury, the moves at right guard are a result of competition. When RG Chris Kuper gave up 3 sacks in a short period of time on Tuesday, Montrae Holland moved up to take his place. I thought this move would be temporary, but it seems that the coaches like Holland’s performance thus far. Just prior to this, the club signed Holland to a two-year contract extension, and it seems the move is already paying them dividends. Holland could be a surprise starter week 1 against the Bills, but anything’s still possible as competition will decide who earns the job on Nalen‘s right.

Defensive Line – Jimmy Kennedy has been seeing a lot of first team snaps with Sam Adams suffering from various nicks thus far in training camp (mostly his sore knee). Amon Gordon has been impressive at DT as well, and filled in for Gerard Warren in afternoon practices yesterday (Warren had the afternoon off as a veteran).

Wide Receiver – The Broncos had to go 5 deep into their receiving corps. to practice this morning, with Brandon Stokley being the most noticeable absence with his right thigh injury. Rod Smith and Brandon Marshall have still yet to practice this training camp, and young newcomers Glenn Martinez and Marquay McDaniel were both out as well. Meanwhile, Hixon, Kircus and Clark took turns fielding punts from likely backup Paul Ernster yesterday afternoon. Ernester had several nice snags of high snaps.

Tight End – Tony Scheffler got back onto the field for some significant work today. Great news there.

Linebacker – With Warrick Holdman still playing the wait-and-see game with his spinal cord concussion, and Louis Green out with a knee, the injuries are causing more competition. New Bronco Wesley Mallard has been seeing snaps behind Ian Gold when he was allowed off for the afternoon yesterday, and D.D. Lewis seems to be taking advantage of the Green and Holdman absences at SAM. I still expect Lewis will be our starter on the strong side through most of the year.

Running back – Mike Bell needs to fight for his job, and lucky enough for him he was feeling better and able to run the ball today. Cecil Sapp is still holding him off for the 2nd RB spot, but he has also been seeing a bit more work at fullback as Bell’s lead blocker. It REALLY looks like I was wrong regarding Selvin Young – Andre Hall is the true stud out of the two. Hey, if either of them end up being a star I’ll be happy either way!

Safety – Both starters John Lynch and Nick Ferguson were excused to pay respects to the late Bill Walsh today. This opened up room for Curome Cox and Domonique Foxworth to start at safety, with Hamzah Abdullah looking impressive thus far in camp as well, but sitting out due to injuries of his own. People are impressed with Foxy’s play – I’ve heard about his hard hits despite his lack of ideal size from several camp reports. These, and the way our other backups have been playing have many believing that we won’t be seeing Greg Wesley in the orange and blue any time soon.

A lot of these injuries are just the common kinks you could expect – Shanahan even said if the Lepsis and Hamilton injuries were during a real game week, he would anticipate both being able to start that Sunday. Playing it cautious with our veterans only gives our young guys more opportunities to show their worth and fight for a roster spot in the weeks ahead.