Polumbus: Don’t count out Broncos Cody Latimer yet

One of the blessings in disguise of coming to a team after opening day is that you haven’t heard any outside opinions of yourself or your teammates. I joined the Broncos in Week 3 last year and came in with absolutely zero preconceived notions about the team or my teammates. I didn’t know who was drafted where nor did I know who the media had anointed the stars of the team or the busts of previous drafts.

It was honestly not until I joined the media circles that I learned of the outside frustrations of my teammate Cody Latimer. To me, he was just a hard working young wide receiver with plenty to learn and loads of very obvious potential. Now that I am removed and entertaining the stock up/stock down type discussions of Broncos players during training camp, I know the full background on Cody.

I can understand the frustrations from a fan’s perspective when a player that is drafted high, like Cody in the second round, does not produce at a high level. With high draft picks, and high salaries (i.e. Von Miller), come high expectations.

I was impressed with Cody last year, not because of his stats on the field but because of his very obvious talent and his nose to the ground approach that I wish all young players would have. I fully expected last year to see this kid become a big time contributor of this club, and now I fully expect to see Cody play at a level the warrants his second round pick.

The NFL is full of some of the most insecure human beings on this earth. We constantly have someone younger, faster, and stronger on our heels. From the day we enter the NFL our boss’ only job is to find someone better to replace us with, and we are fully aware of this.

Cody let it be known that this was the case for him as a young player as he felt the nerves of playing with Peyton Manning wore on him. He felt like it was hard to perform for a man that was larger than life.  When he ran the wrong route or dropped a ball, he felt like he was letting his Hall of Fame teammate down.

I can relate to this. My second year in the NFL I was thrust into the starting lineup for eight games when Ryan Harris went down. My center at the time was the incredibly long tenured and successful player Casey Wiegmann. At no fault of Casey’s, at times I was a worse player as a young man when I felt like I had to live up to Casey’s expectations of me.

Casey was hard on me, not unfairly, but hard nonetheless and demanded that even though I was a second year undrafted player that I play as if I was a seasoned pro. Every time I gave up a sack or didn’t pick up the right blitzer, I felt as if I had not only let myself down but as if I had let down the Godfather of our offensive line. At times, this pressure got to the point of being more afraid of Casey than I was of my coach. Certainly this is a similar feeling to what Cody was going through with Peyton.

It takes time to mature your confidence in the NFL to the point of being so confident in your knowledge of the scheme and your ability to execute it that when something goes wrong you are able to quickly flush it and move on to the next play with full confidence that you absolutely will win the next battle in front of you.

Nothing can get you to this point except time and experience. Years three and four are when you usually see players hit their peak performance and the mental side of it is as big as anything.

Cody has the opportunity to seize the No. 3 wide receiver position with Bennie Fowler out. He has been standing out every day in practice with one handed grabs, diving catches, and great route running.  He stood out in the first preseason game, and I fully expect him to get over the hurdle of living in fear of letting his teammates down this year and go ball out with the kind of confidence that got him drafted in the second round.