Some NFL teams begin offseason work this week; Broncos will wait a while

Monday, one of the teams expected to fight with the Broncos for AFC supremacy will begin its offseason conditioning work.

The Baltimore Ravens will dive in, beneficiaries of an NFL rule that allows teams with new head coaches to gather two weeks earlier than anyone else. Other clubs with new coaches — including the Buffalo Bills, defeated by the Broncos in the AFC divisional playoffs — will begin work Tuesday. The same is true for the Pittsburgh Steelers, who won the AFC North last season and will be on Denver’s schedule.

Everyone else in the NFL will gather for team-organized workouts on April 20 or 21.

The Broncos will wait two weeks longer, until May 4. Why? Because last season ran so long.

“This year, we went three weeks further into the season. Our players won’t be in our building until May, the first Monday in May,” Broncos coach Sean Payton said.

“… I don’t want them to feel like they were just here. So, we’ve done that before. I think it’s important, and I think the players appreciate it because they were just here.”

And while 30 NFL teams will kick off Phase 3 of organized team activities — the on-field work that allows teams to conduct practices with 11-on-11 and seven-on-seven offense-vs.-defense work — in May, Denver is one of three teams that will wait until June, and by kicking off on June 2, will be the last of the 32 teams to begin.

Further, while all teams can use Phases 1 and 2 for team and position-group meetings, Payton’s Broncos won’t.

“All of May will just be weightlifting. You’ll see us on the field in June,” Payton said. “We’ll have two weeks of OTAs and a week of minicamp.”

And when June arrives, the Broncos won’t use all of their potential on-field days — as was the case last year, too.

TEN TEAMS HAVE FEWER DAYS THAN THE BRONCOS

The thing is, Denver isn’t even on the cutting edge when it comes to slicing offseason days. With 10 days of offseason work, the Broncos come in below the maximum, but they don’t have the shortest offseason.

Carolina, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle all have just nine days of Phase 3 offseason work scheduled. This is becoming more of a trend, as teams prioritize offseason rest and conditioning over on-field work.

The Broncos can’t quibble with the results that followed last year’s truncated offseason; the league’s best record and the team’s deepest advance in the postseason in a decade. If not for Bo Nix’s fractured ankle, a Super Bowl appearance seemed likely.

Correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation, but for the Broncos, there’s no reason to change.

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