Broncos see tempers boil over in intense Tuesday practice

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — For the Broncos and any other NFL team, “Don’t touch the quarterback” is the first, most essential rule of a training-camp practice. It’s the reason why passers typically wear different-colored jerseys than the rest of the team; whatever that jersey is — currently navy-blue for the Broncos — it’s the visual reminder of what defensive players always have to consider.

And until Tuesday, Broncos quarterback Bo Nix hadn’t hit the deck during training camp, although he’d been under consistent pressure. But when Nik Bonitto bull-rushed Garett Bolles — and kept pushing the All-Pro left tackle — eventually Bolles came into contact with Nix, and the temperature of an already fierce Tuesday practice rose several degrees.

Malcolm Roach also provided pressure on the play, leaving Nix nowhere to go but down. And the football quickly found Roach, as Nix threw it at him in frustration.

“Coach (Sean) Payton talks about how to practice from Day One, and we all know on defense to avoid the quarterback, right? It it gets competitive, obviously, and guys are rushing to win the down, and sometimes they get too close,” defensive coordinator Vance Joseph said.

“And we simply remind them, ‘Bo’s our quarterback, and we don’t want anyone near Bo.'”

Nix was none the worse for the wear. But all that collision did was set up the real donnybrook that took place two plays later after an Alex Singleton interception — which was quickly followed by RJ Harvey punching the football out of his grasp.

Both sets of linemen were involved. Calvin Throckmorton — working at center with both Luke Wattenberg and Alex Forsyth sidelined and Michael Deiter suffering a season-ending quadriceps injury last week — got bloodied. Nix grabbed Bonitto’s leg at one point.

“Yeah, it’s gonna happen,” offensive coordinator Davis Webb said. “We just can’t cross the line. I think Sean said that and I agree.

“I’m glad that we’re fiery. I love the competition out here. It’s been unbelievable to watch both sides of the ball win some plays and win some periods. But yeah, we can’t cross the line — and that’s offense and defense. That’s not just one person, one position group. We all had a part in that. So we’re gonna handle that in this meeting and make sure we understand we’re the Denver Broncos, not offense versus defense.”

Added Joseph: “When we’re playing our style of football, it’s aggressive, it’s downhill, but we can’t ever cross the line and hurt our team.”

And as for Nix himself?

“I love it. It’s football. It’s getting me ready for the games coming up and it’s a physical practice out there played by physical people,” he said. “So, it got intense and we were just really enjoying it and sometimes in the dog days of summer practice gets long and the intensity runs high.”

BRONCOS DEFENSE WON THE DAY IN THE END

Practice ended with a “move-the-ball” period that gave the offense the football at its 36-yard line, 1:19 on the clock and a 19-17 fourth-quarter deficit with one timeout at its disposal. The Broncos defense won both series.

On the first, the No. 1 offense was quickly in first-and-15 after a Mike McGlinchey false-start penalty opened the series. Pat Surtain II, Brandon Jones and Ja’Quan McMillian each broke up passes, with the only completion coming on a 6-yard Nix pass to RJ Harvey.

The second-team offense — with Jarrett Stidham at quarterback — petered out in four plays. Stidham looked for Dane Key on a deep post route on first-and-10, but the pass sailed too far. Pressure from Dondrea Tillman forced a third-down incompletion, and Que Robinson wrapped up the series — and the practice — with a fourth-down sack.

For more from the day at Broncos training camp, watch the embedded video.

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