Attendance
Did not practice: Physically Unable to Perform list — WR A.T. Perry (foot/ankle). Out — ILB Alex Singleton (thumb), ILB Drew Sanders (foot), ILB Dre Greenlaw (quad), OLB Que Robinson (knee).
Singleton graduated from a cast to a small brace on his left hand. He went through stretching but was not in pads for practice and is slated to return next week. Payton provided insight into the timelines for both Greenlaw and Robinson.
He said the team was “fortunate” Greenlaw only suffered a “tweak” to his quad and said the injury was in a different area of the muscle than the issue that kept him out much of the offseason. He should return in some capacity next week, but his workload in the joint practice and preseason game at San Francisco is up in the air. Payton said the team would be “careful” with him.
Robinson has a bone bruise and sported a bulky brace while watching practice Friday. He’s also on track to return Monday.
Newcomer impact
This is going to get to be old hat quickly at the current rate, but Talanoa Hufanga makes his presence felt daily.
On a day that featured extensive red-zone and two-minute work, he logged a terrific interception off of Bo Nix.
Nix fired a pass in the red zone, and Hufanga, who was up in the box and not very far from Nix when he released the ball, somehow leapt and reacted to the ball quickly enough to haul it in. Then he raced for the end zone.
“It was an RPO, and if you really look at his distance from the throw, it was maybe 8 yards,” Payton said. “So to be able to go up and catch that with a crowded look in front of him was (impressive). I’m anxious to go look at it on film because I saw it from behind the line of scrimmage. … That play was sick.”
Top Plays
Well, Hufanga probably. But Pat Surtain II also picked off Nix in the red zone on a ball intended for Courtland Sutton.
Payton had an interesting explanation of the play and said it was essentially the same thing that happened to Russell Wilson in 2023 against Houston when Derek Stingley Jr. picked him off.
“Sutton was on a double-move and it was just a location error,” Payton said of Nix’s pick in practice. “You clean it up. You know, with that route — same route we ran against Houston and same field corner overlapped and made an interception. … It looks like an open receiver, but it’s understanding there’s a blind area where the ball can’t go and then it doesn’t happen again.”
Thumbs Up
The No. 1 and No. 2 defense dominated a late-practice two-minute drill scenario in which the offense started at its own 25 with 1:43 to go and one timeout, needing a touchdown. The top defense did jump offside twice, but ultimately made life difficult for Nix and company. A highlight: Hufanga arriving just as the ball did on a short pass to Jaleel McLaughlin. In a real game setting, McLaughlin would have been tackled in bounds with the clock running. It was a heck of a play. Eventually, the No. 1 offense stalled out and settled for what would have been a Hail Mary try.
The No. 2 offense’s drive only lasted two plays until rookie receiver Pat Bryant slipped on a route and Damarri Mathis intercepted Jarrett Stidham.
Thumbs Down
Earlier in the practice, Stidham’s group had a set of four plays that featured three false start penalties and a broken play after a quarterback/center exchange issue. Rookie center Joe Michalski got pulled from the drill in favor of second-year man Nick Gargiulo.
It was the second straight day the Broncos had officials on hand, and they’re making a point in camps of being extremely tight on offensive offsides and formation and alignment penalties. All the same, Payton said his group’s got to be tighter before the snap.
“We’ve got to get that cleaned up,” Payton said.
Odds and Ends
• High above training camp practices is a tower crane in near constant motion as the Broncos’ new team headquarters is built.
Friday the club held a short “topping out” ceremony as the crane lifted the highest wood beam into place. Now the construction crews will work to finish all the exterior work by November and then dive fully into the interior through the winter for a May 2026 move-in.
Payton on Friday relayed a story from Thursday about owners Carrie Walton-Penner and Greg Penner climbing up the narrow stairs all the way to the cockpit of the tower crane during a hard-hat tour.
Payton’s reaction: “No thank you,” he said with a smile.
• The playful feud between defensive lineman Malcolm Roach and wide receiver Marvin Mims Jr. carried on into Friday. A day after Mims said Roach needed to worry about the “fat guys” and leave him alone, Roach responded on the podium by saying Mims “is built like a mosquito.”
Roach is this group’s ringleader and the trash talk is all in good fun. That didn’t stop Mims from getting legitimately mad Friday when he got tackled by John Franklin-Myers on the first play of 11-on-11 of practice. Mims got up, walked off behind the huddle and slammed his helmet on the ground. He’s been tackled by both JFM and Dre Greenlaw now in recent days, despite coaches’ insistence that players do not take teammates to the ground.
• Roach, for his part, is thrilled to have found an offensive equal (or at least almost) on the trash-talk front in free agent running back addition J.K. Dobbins.
“I got so happy when J.K. talked back to me,” Roach said. “I’m like, ‘yes, bro. Finally, we got some action going on.’ You saw it in that (Wednesday) practice. That was one of the funnest practices I’ve been a part of in my life. It’s contagious throughout the team.”
• Payton had really interesting insight into tight end Evan Engram and the problems that he presents defenses. In the course of answering, he also provided a glimpse at one of many reasons the Broncos defense projects to be so good.
“The hardest part about defense is having enough cover people,” Payton said.
Well, Denver’s got enough that they can match up almost however coordinator Vance Joseph wants. But many teams can’t, and that’s where players like Engram thrive.
“When Evan’s in, we count him (as a tight end), but the defense may look at it and count him as a receiver,” Payton said. “Certainly in this two-minute drill, I didn’t see any linebackers covering him. I saw defensive backs. We have the depth to do that.”
• During one special teams period, kicker Wil Lutz buried a 61-yard field goal with plenty of room to spare. It’s just practice, obviously, but notable considering Lutz’s longest career make in a game is 60. That came for New Orleans in 2022.
• There’s a reason most of the conversation around the Broncos’ running back room has centered on Dobbins and rookie RJ Harvey, but other guys have made some plays in recent days. Audric Estime was strong through the middle of the week. Each of the past couple of days, fellow second-year man Blake Watson has had a series of nice runs. He’s got burst between the tackles and the ability to make tacklers miss. Denver’s not going to be able to keep everybody in that group. The next 14 days feature two preseason games and two joint practices. Those will be critical for sorting out the pecking order behind the top two.
• Saturday is set to be a modified scrimmage day for the Broncos to cap a six-day work week. They’ll sprinkle in special teams periods but will get a ton of snaps between red zone, move-the-ball and situational work.
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