Locked On Broncos - Daily Podcast On The Denver Broncos - Denver Broncos GEARING UP For Joint Practice With San Francisco 49ers

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

The Denver Broncos are gearing up for Thursday's joint training camp practice against the San Francisco 49ers. What do we want to see from Bo Nix, RJ Harvey and the Broncos offense? What are we hoping to see from Levelle Bailey, Nik Bonitto, and the Broncos defense against Brock Purdy? Cody Roark is a credentialed beat reporter for Mile High Sports and covers the Broncos daily in person. Sayre Bedinger is the site expert for Predominantly Orange. Both bring Broncos Country the most in-depth and objective coverage of the Denver Broncos. WANT MORE DAILY DENVER BRONCOS CONTENT?For all of the latest Denver Broncos news today -- Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms…🎧 https://link.chtbl.com/LOBroncos?sid=YouTube Locked On NFL League-Wide: Every Team, Fantasy, Draft & More🎧 https://linktr.ee/LockedOnNFL Follow on Twitter: @CodyRoarkNFL and @SayreBedingerFollow the show on Twitter: @LockedOnBroncos Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!5-Hour ENERGYGo to 5hourenergy.com today and use promo code LOCKEDONGOLF to receive 20% off your order. This offer is only valid until September 30th on one order and cannot be used with other promotions. The code is not good on subscription orders. Yahoo FantasyPresented by YahooFantasy #YahooPartner. Play Now at https://yahoofantasy.com/lockedonnfl. GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNFL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime. FanDuelRight now, new customers can get $150 in BONUS BETS when your first $5 BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNFL at monarchmoney.com/lockedonnfl for 50% off your first year. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Denver Broncos are gearing up for Thursday's joint practice with the San Francisco 49ers and Boe Nix in the offense. Must take it to Nick Bosa and the 49ers defense. We'll talk about that more on today's episode, Locked on Broncos. You are Locked on Broncos, your daily Denver Broncos podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What's happening in Broncos country? Welcome me to another episode, Lockdown Broncos, your daily Denver Broncos podcast,

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become one, a subscriber to that follow one. That way you never miss out on what's going on with your favorite team. I'm Cody Roark, Broncos reporter from Mile High Sports. Join, as always by Sarah Beninger, site expert over there at predominantly orange.com. And today's episode of the show is brought to our friends over there at Fandul. And right now, new customers can get $150. and bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins.

And you win Broncos country because we have a lot to break down to preview Thursday's joint practice with the San Francisco 40 anders. We're going to go through what we want to see what the offense needs to come out and do here in terms of bonics, things that you want to see, things that you want to avoid like injuries, fights, things along that line. Plus, we'll also go into a preview of the offense against the 49ers defense here in joint practices and why Bo Nix and RJ Harvey, they need to shine. We want to see some flashes from them when they're,

they're competing in the team periods on Thursday. And they'll go through the defensive players like Riley Moss, LaVelle Bailey. And yes, Talanoa Hufanga against his former team in joint practices here. Sarah, let's break it all down. Look, I love the idea of joint practices. And I think this is going to become a little bit more of the thing as the years progress here, especially with Sean Payton was alluding to when the NFL eventually takes away this third preseason game, right? We used to be having four.

Like, we were accustomed to having four games that we would watch. That got cut to three. Three is going to get cut to two. You're going to get an additional regular season game. John Payton believes in the value of these joint training camp practices here. And there's a ton of things that we want to see. And there's a ton of things that we also don't want to see come Thursday when the Broncos take the field. Well, the biggest thing is obviously you want to see everybody come away healthy,

but you also want to see a spirited, fun, and action-packed practice, right? You want to see these guys out there and doing the things that they've been doing. I mean, we've been talking about players who are stacking days at Denver Broncos training. camp and that's going up against their own teammates, right? But what can you do against another team? What can you do against likely? I mean, I don't think this is a stretch to say, Cody, but a worst defense. If you're this young Denver Broncos offense, you've been going up against what could

end up being the number one defense in the NFL all throughout training camp. And now you've got an opportunity where the talent level on the other side, those guys are still NFL players. But man, it's not going to be necessarily the number one defense in the NFL this season. So can you go out and impose your? your will. I think there's a lot we want to see from this Broncos team that we didn't necessarily see last year when they had joint practices. That's for sure. Yeah. And look, I think Robert Sala, he's a mastermind defensively. And he always has tough crafted defenses. I think, you know,

we're going to keep our eyes on Nick Bosa, which is interesting to, I wonder if he's going to practice because the other day at 49ers camp, he was not dressed in a helmet, jersey, or shoulder pads, but was off to the side doing something. So will Nick Bosa be on? on deck here for this joint practice against the Broncos, something to see there. Fred Warner, obviously, he's going to be one guy you have to watch out for, especially as we've seen Bo Nix be a little more aggressive during this training camp.

He's loving attacking the middle of the field. And you've got to watch out for Fred. He's one of the best linebackers in the NFL. And I'm sure there might be some pointers given by Drake Greenlaw and Talenoa whofonga to the offense saying, hey, this is what they like to do. But then again, they may not even, like, it's different with Robert Salah coming over. I know he used to be the D.C. there.

There might be some wrinkles that Robert has maybe changed in how he's called things beforehand. I think in a secondary you look there, they have, you know, Diomador, Lenore, who obviously I loved watching at the University of Oregon. He's going to be playing there at that cornerback position. Just not a lot of big names. I know there's Eli Apple. He's one of the guys that's also in there in the secondary. So you have Fred Warner, D. Winters at linebacker.

That's definitely not Dre Greenlaw. So we'll see how that is. Mike Lill Williams. obviously a first round pick here for them playing defensive end. And then you also have, you know, Yetter gross modos who's also in the mixer too. So I just want to see this Broncos team come out of the offense. I want them to come out on fire. I want them to come out with energy because I remember a couple of years ago,

Sean Payton's first year in Denver. The Broncos held a joint training camp practice with the Los Angeles Rams. And man, they had zero energy there. They got smacked in the mouth by Matthew Stafford, Kyron Williams, and company there. And it caused Sean Payton to get very men. Matt. I mean, we even read the article. He had to burn candles in his office afterwards. And then the next year, we saw the Broncos against Green Bay bring the energy. So I think they learned that lesson. I think this team is different. But you want to see these guys come out

focused with a lot of energy. You do. And it's especially so against a team that is trying to climb its way back in a contention like the 49ers are. Right. I mean, last year was a down year for them. But of course, I think you can blame a lot of that on injuries to their key players. And there was a lot of them, right? On both sides of the ball. And now they've, loss to the guys. That's the thing that with this 49ers team, like, I'm interested. I know we're not a 49ers podcast, but obviously we'll get an up close look at their roster going forward here. And it's going to be just a completely different team than maybe even Broncos fans are used to. There's going to be the big name that you recognize, right? Christian McCaffrey,

Brock Purdy, George Kittle, all these guys, Trent Williams out there. But like you mentioned, defensively, they're very much rebuilding right now. Yes, Robert Sala is there. And yes, he's a great play caller and he's a great schemer. He can get the most out of the talent that they have. But Cody, I mean, they lost not only Telenoa Hufanga and Dre Greenlaw, but they lost Charverius Ward and they lost a number of other. I mean, I think Leonard Floyd is gone now this offseason. So there's just so many different guys that they've had in recent years, you know, that are just, it's going to look completely different for them. It's the greatest hits are still there. It's kind of like a cover band that's missing the lead sing, right? There's so many pieces that are still the

But the one person on the stage there, it's just like, I don't want to watch Adam Lambert, you know, singing Queen songs or whatever it may be. Like, it's not the same. It doesn't hit the same. It's just a different team. It's rebuilding. You may still enjoy the greatest hits. They may still be able to get the most out of those greatest hits.

But shoot, when you're going up against a team like that, you want them like we talked about in yesterday's episode. You want Kyle Shanahan burning candles in his office at the end of the day being like, all right, we thought we had all these pieces in place. We thought that the rebuild was going well. We thought we drafted well. Now we got to really reevaluate because these guys just got kicked in the mouth by the Denver Broncos. Well, I think some things we do want to see when we get into team specific periods here.

You know, you want to see the Broncos offense having success in the red zone period. And I also think defensively, you want them to get takeaways. If you can just, you know, generate interceptions off of Brock Purdy, you know, if you can punch the ball out of a running back's hands, I mean, you want to get stops on fourth down. I'm sure there's going to be those competitive periods. You want to see those things. but let's get into some of the things we absolutely do not want to see. Sarah, obviously, I think it's easy.

It's the cliche. You don't want to see guys getting injured. You want guys to come out of this joint practice, healthy, ready to go for Saturdays, preseason game. That's got to be the biggest thing. But there's also these other things I think you want to avoid, especially if it indicates if you're doing these things, it indicates that there might be a little bit of a lack of focus.

I understand chippiness. Part of the game, right? You don't want to have some of these skirmishes to the point of what we saw against the Dallas Cowboys a few years. years ago, where he had Draymont Jones putting his fingers to the head of a Cowboys offensive tackle. I mean, I remember that. That's just not what you want.

And I would say that last year's practice against Green Bay, very competitive, chippy, but it never had any skirmishes, which is something you love to see. Yeah, you want these guys to keep level heads because the last thing you need is some, one of your key players, like breaking a finger or breaking his hand because he tried to smack somebody in the helmet or whatever. I mean, like, that's the stuff you just, you just can't have. have, right? And for a Broncos team that is working on discipline, right? Because they were penalized quite often last year, you want to avoid these types of things. And you're going to have to go up,

you play a different team every Sunday. I don't know what it is about joint practices that flares up tempers so much, Cody, because these guys play against different teams every single week during the season. So yeah, keep your head, keep your cool, be disciplined, go out there, make plays, stay healthy. It's going to be a fun preseason game. There's a lot. to evaluate for both of these rosters. It's Broncos bringing back a ton of guys, a lot of new faces, a lot of rookies that are going to be playing big roles. And the same is true for the 49ers, because if the 49ers are going to get back to

relevance in the NFC West, they're going to need their draft class to hit like all the top five or so picks that they had. They're going to have to play well right away. But the same could be true for the Broncos too, right? It's like the Broncos need Jada Baron to play better than what we saw last year from the slot. They need RJ Harvey to step up. You need these guys.

Pat Bryant, I mean, it's going to be a big, big season for both of these teams. And it's not that they're in the same position, but certainly the Broncos and 49ers can relate to each other, given where the 49ers are now is kind of where the Broncos were a couple of seasons ago. Yeah, and right now Denver is kind of rising. And I think the perception of San Francisco is they, you know, they were up here at the top. Now they might be going down a little bit, maybe staying medium,

but, you know, they're teetering between a rise and a flood. All very, very interesting storylines for both of these teams going into obviously this joint practice, but obviously this season as well. In Broncos country, we're going to continue our training camp joint practice preview here between Denver and San Francisco by highlighting why Bo Nix needs to have a fast and effective day against a new defensive look that he hasn't seen all of training camp will go through our offensive player preview here on today's episode, Locked on Broncos. This episode is presented by Yahoo Fantasy, and this is the best time of the year because

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The offseason flew by. And here we are. We're at joint practices. A lot of exciting stuff happening for the offense. And we'll talk about the defense coming up on today's show as well. But I want to say thank you so much to all of you for making us your first listen of the day. Every single day here on the lockdown podcast network. And you know what?

Hit subscribe if you haven't done so already. Wherever you listen to podcasts and on YouTube. Cody Bo Nix, he's that dude. I saw the behind the scenes. I think it was the first video. video he ever dropped on his YouTube page. So another subscription for our listeners out there, go subscribe to Bo Nix. I don't think he's going to have any trouble generating following there.

But I loved watching that. I love watching him in the process behind the scenes, how hard of a worker he is. This is going to be one of the great opportunities for him to sort of manifest what he's been doing behind the scenes, the motivation versus discipline that he kind of gave a little schooling on in that video was really good stuff. But, man, to see him out there against another team, another defense, how he's progressed against a well-coached defense, man, it's going to be fun. And I think he is the headliner here, obviously, as the Broncos get into this joint practice. Yeah, I think, you know, guys like DJ Jones, even though DJ hasn't played on that system for a long time, you know, Jerry Greenlaw, he's obviously a guy you got to factor into that equation right there.

These guys can maybe give a little insight to Sean Payton, to Boehnix, to like what type of front their own. though, you know what, they don't need that. Sean Payton, the coaching staff, they know that. But it's good to maybe hear some things from those guys that just recently came over and played, you know, how they like to attack certain things, you know, certain weaknesses guys have there. But, you know, I think for Bo Nicks, like last year, this is where I think we really came away impressed with him was when he had that joint practice against the Green Bay Packers,

it was a different defensive. Look, and the Packers defense, it's not a slouch, Sarah. I know you also do some Packers coverage for NFL spin zone and NFL Mox. You look at a lot of different things. that's a pretty solid defense. They have really good players on the defensive line at linebacker and also in the secondary. I mean, you look at San Francisco.

They have an elite level player on the defensive line. They have it at linebacker. They have some really good players in the secondary as well, some young guys in that secondary. But for Bo, you know, you get a different look. And it's like, all right, you're going against Pastor Tan every single day. And you're getting the same defensive look. You're getting, you know, different looks against hyperaggressive blitzes that Vance Joseph is going to throw your way here. Well, now it's a different look.

So can you go out there and recognize, hey, we're sticking to our roots here foundationally as an offense. And these are things that we are accelerated on. But this is what we want to attack. It doesn't matter what they come out in. If they come out, we recognize it's cover two or cover four. Okay, I know exactly where I'm going. Even though we haven't studied against this look, it's just going out there and running your base stuff, I think, to try to just master that.

Right. There's a level of mastery that has to come to the forefront there. You want to see a good day here from Bo, Nick. You want to come away reading like, you know, Bo here in the team period. through two touchdowns was very sharp, didn't have any passes hit the ground, didn't turn the ball over. Like, that's what we're looking for for Bo. But then we're also not going to overreact if, you know, yeah, he throws a pick.

I mean, it's practice. You want to get it out in practice. You want to make this mistake now so you don't make it in the game. And then you're going to have film that you're going to go back and watch after this joint practice. And now when you go and play the game, obviously on Saturday, it's like, okay, we got a little bit of a look now and here's where we're going to be at. For me, I'm excited to see Bo here.

Yeah, I am too. the other guys get paid to play, but you're right, Cody. I mean, the Broncos are the team that they were in this offense together last year. One of the first things we heard this offseason program and training camp was, man, Bo Nix has such a great command of the offense now. And all these sorts of things that are lending towards the Broncos being able to, okay, even if you're just going out there and executing base stuff or if it's situational and you're just executing your base offense, whatever it may be,

you should look a lot better than a defense that's changing coordinators, that's changing more than half their starters. I mean, you should look better than those guys. We've heard all about the progression from the receivers. We've heard all about how EZE, Evan Ingram, is that new easy button for the offense. We've heard how much better the run game looks. Like the offensive line, supposed to be one of the best in the NFL. Man, if you don't go out there and crush this practice offensively for the Broncos.

I know we'll talk about the defense in a bit, but this is an opportunity for the offense. As we know, oftentimes, I think Daniel Jeremiah tweeted this. this out that offenses are often at this point in the year behind the defense in terms of coming along, which is normal. And I think we've seen that early on. We have the interception overreactions, right? From the fan base, we've had all this. The defense is dominating once again.

What's wrong with the offense? It happens every single year at this time at training camp. But when you're going into a joint practice against a team that's breaking in a bunch of young bucks, I've got a new system out there. I know it's the old that some of those guys played for, but, man, you should dominate. dominate in these situations, you know, for where the Broncos are at right now. Who else do you have your eye on here? I mean, obviously, I think Bo Nix, we're all excited to see that.

But is there anyone in particular that you've got your eye on that you want to see just have, you know, a dazzling day? And I was just thinking, too, as you were talking about you said EZE Evan Ingram. I was thinking, okay, that's it. I like that nickname. I think that's his Instagram name. But then you brought me to the point of like easy button Sutton. I think that's going to be the new nickname they're going to come up with as well.

So Broncos country, take tabs of it. we call the here easy button Sutton for Cortland there and then easy E but anyways sorry uh who do you have your eye on here on the offensive side of the ball in this joint practice well now you got me trying to think of a name for Troy Franklin I think that that's got to be like the Z button or something like that you know where it's like the special power up on Mario card or something I don't know I want to see Troy Franklin continue to do things Cody we he's been doing it against his own teammates go out and do it against the 49ers now I think we we have RJ Harvey Harvey in our show outline for today. I think he's a big factor here because you want to see that running back who you said

had maybe the best vision of anybody in this class when you're putting them in game type of situations, even if it is a joint practice, if it's a, you know, first and 10, you know, let's see what we can get for drive starters or if it's tight red zone or whatever it may be. You want to see RJ Harvey become that mismatch player. I mean, Sean Payton said twice now, we haven't given him his joker wings yet. When's he going to get the wings? Is this going to be the opportunity? Is this going to be the moment just like it was for Jalil McLaughlin a couple years ago where he's like, okay, man, we can't cut this guy now. Maybe this is going to be that moment for RJ Harvey to where he finally, okay, let's put

the wings on. He's ready to go. Well, and the challenge so much of the running back position in training camps here, I mean, you're watching guys like run through contact, you know, and you're seeing the whistle, but you're not going to the ground in practice. I would guess, and this has just been the trend over the last couple of years, these joint practices, they're typically the most physical training camp practice you're going to have, I would say all camp long for these guys, right? And obviously, you don't want to go to the ground,

but this is kind of like a scrimmage format. And it's controlled chaos a little bit. So how does RJ Harvey look, you know, with extended contact? I mean, he's broken off some runs, but also, you know, it's like it's hard for us to evaluate out there practice because, you know, it looks like he springs off a big run, you know, he runs through a shoulder tackle on one, on one instance. but it's like, does he get wrapped up in a real situation? I don't know. But yeah, I want to see that. I like that you mentioned Troy Franklin.

I'm also going to throw Pat Bryant's name into the mix as well. I want to continue to see Pat because he's continued to evolve and just look good. And I'm going to stick to my guns here that he's going to be the most refined technical route runner here on this team. You can see the quick explosive breaks in, out vertically. I mean, he's very good at attacking different coverage leverages that, you know, you see if a corner's playing inside or if he's playing off to the outside, which indicates zone. He recognizes that and it kind of pieces together there. But like for him, he's catching passes from Bow.

He's catching passes from Jared Stidham. He's catching passes from Sam Ellinger. And he's looking good. He's coming along. He's getting a large volume of reps. I would like to see Pat and Troy just be these two guys that go off in this joint practice against the San Francisco 49ers. Broncos country, which offensive players do you have your eyes on in Thursday's joint practice? Sarah and I are going to have to cover it every step of the way as practice finishes.

an episode here of Lockdown Broncos. But we're going to focus now on the defensive side of the ball and why we want to see Riley-Ly Moss and LaVelle Bailey make plays against Brock Purdy and that 49ers offense. We'll break it down here on today's episode of the show. Today's Lockdown Broncos podcast is brought to you by friends over there at Fandul America's number one sportsbook. In summer sports, they are in full swing.

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help them win if that's the case here. But what are we going to see here? But what are we going to see here early on in the dog days of summer, a joint training camp practice in Santa Clara, 40 miles away from San Francisco, which is always a fun conversation to have when you hear it on a broadcast about them, San Francisco for you. Santa Clara 49 is what we're going to start calling there. But Riley Moss, Lavelle Bailey, a handful of other defensive players are some guys that we have our names on here. Sarah, let's focus here in on the defense, you know, because I think when we look at this 49ers

offense, yes, Brock Purdy got a massive contract extension here. You've got George Kittle, who's obviously a very athletic and physically imposing tight end. He doesn't have like the biggest body bill like Grankowski did back in the day. But this is a guy who understands leverage. He knows how to attack in the blocking game. And man, is he a prolific past catching tight end when he's got the ball? He's got his Joker wings there for Kyle Shanahan's offense. And then obviously Christian McCaffrey, who's very explosive.

But they also have a ton of running backs that seem to be very explosive behind him. Who are we looking at here on this Broncos defense? to shine a little bit in joint practices on Thursday. You got to start with the former 49ers, don't you? I think that's the thing. It's like, you want to show these guys that the grass was greener on the other side of the fence because that's oftentimes what happens in free agency is these guys get, you know, hey, I just, I'm priced out of your range.

I'm going to go where the grass is greener in terms of, you know, my wallet. And I'm going to go, you know, try to have success elsewhere. And rarely does it work out? But man, the Denver Broncos have a chance to make it look like it works out pretty, pretty good for a trio of former 49ers, Dre Greenlaw, Talanoa, Hufanga, and DJ Jones, as you mentioned before. Definitely going to be keeping tabs

on those guys, Cody. And I want to hear your thoughts on them as well, but I feel like if Trent Williams is practicing, I don't know the entire injury situation going on with the 49ers right now, I assume he's practicing. If Trent Williams is practicing, whoever's going up against Trent Williams in joint practice

is going, and I'm sure the Broncos will try intentionally to put all their guys out there against him to see what like to go against the best left tackle in the game, that's the matchup that I think situationally, team drills, whatever the case may be, that's the matchup to watch in any practice setting,

like one-on-one against Trent Williams, your best pass rushers, put them on him and let him go to work. Yeah, you know, Nick Benito's had a tremendous training camp as well, and I think ideally, if it all plays out with him being there, I think it is going to be Nick against him.

I think you're going to see, we've seen a lot of Nick Benito and Zach Allen on the same side of the field. Those two guys are havoc creators. So against this 49ers team, I would love to see that disruption here. You know, you mentioned Drey Greenlaw and obviously DJ Jones,

Taleno Hu Fonga. I don't know if Drake Greenlaw is going to practice against San Francisco here in these joint looks that they're going to be getting here. Because look, obviously on Monday's practice, we saw Drey Greenlaw come back out in full pads. Just observe. You know, I think he's just doing some conditioning stuff right now.

I don't think we're going to see him. I don't think we're going to see Alex Singleton practicing against these guys, and I don't think either of them are going to play. So for me, that's where my focus is going to kind of shift here to Lavelle Bailey, who's had a really good training camp here. Now, against an offense, as we know, they love to do a lot of motion in San Francisco, and they have a guy like Christian McCaffrey. They have the running back out of Louisville, Isaac, I don't want to butcher his last name.

Do you know it off the top of your head? Grendo? Grendo. I mean, remember with the injuries last year, and he burst off like a 60-something-yard in a primetime game and, you know, he could have scored and ended it, but he, he slid to run the clock down there. Like, he's fast. Like, for some reason, San Francisco always just hits on these running backs, but they also deal with a lot of injuries at that position. So I want to see how Lavelle Bailey, Justin Sternard, work against obviously one of the best running backs in the NFL, Christian McCaffrey,

the depth that they have behind him. That's going to be a very crucial piece here. I think it's also answering the question is if the Broncos have an injury to either of the starters and linebacker in the regular season, can these guys step in? And, play well. This is a good test because now you're getting a look against an offense that you really haven't seen anything from. This is a different look for these guys. So it goes back to are they being coached the right way? I'm excited to see maybe how this linebacker room responds in this joint practice. Is there anyone else that you have your eyes on here specifically? Because even then, like I'm always trying to figure out with that wide receiver situation is like, you know,

in terms of Brandon I, youke, injuries there. You know, I was following along on Twitter, listening to our guys over there at Lockdown 49ers, Crocky and obviously Brian Peacock, Ricky Pearsall has also been off the field a little bit. So in Joanne Jennings, I think has been also a guy that's kind of been up and down. They have good receivers if healthy, but, and I don't know what that situation is going to look like going into Thursday.

Yeah, I know that I've been reading recently, Cody, that Ricky Pearsall been having some really good practices out there at training camp for the 49ers, which, man, for them, kid you, Matt, that would be such a huge boost to their offense. to get anything out of him. After you trade Debo, you've got injury concerns still with Brandon Iyuk and all these other things going on with Joanne Jennings' injury contract.

Otherwise, to have Ricky Pearsall have a breakout camp would be huge for them, or a breakout year in general. So if he's having good practices, if he's stacking days out there, shoot, I'm interested to find out who's going to be covering him for the Broncos. Is he going to be playing in the slot outside? I think all the corners for Denver, this is an opportunity. you've been going up against a lot of young receivers plus Cortland Sutton, right? Now you've got a chance to go up against a new group of guys.

And once again, impose your will. That's what I think we want to see from everybody out there is, okay, the things that we've been hearing from you at Denver Broncos training camp, we want to see that to another degree against a different team. You want to see these guys go out there. They're competitors. They want to be the best. You're getting a lot of hype.

Cody, are you getting a little afraid of all the hype, the Broncos are getting right. Last year, it was all about proving everybody wrong. This year, it's like, okay, well, shoot, now we got to go prove everybody right because they're everybody's favorite pick. So I know that was kind of a tangent there, but, man, they're generating a ton of hype right now. And it just feels like you've got to go out there and not only live up to it, but sort of exceed those expectations every time you hit the field.

I think it's a good tangent that you were on there. And certainly I think maybe from the perspective of the fan base, I would say that fans, and you could probably speak for the fans more than I can, right? because I think that the hype sometimes creates this fear. Like, what if they don't live up to it? What if they sputter out, right? And there's always a possibility that it's the game of football. You know, you can have a lot of hype surrounding you.

But I think it just goes back to the focus of the locker, the culture that is already being built. I think the players inside that locker room, they kind of know like, hey, okay, we got more eyes on us. Now it's up to us to go out there and just continue to live up to that. We can't let the hype and let, you know, the extra attention. overshadow what we've been trying to do and what we've been trying to accomplish. You know, and I read something as well.

There was there was one thing that, you know, I can't remember which Broncos player was saying it. But basically one of the rookie guys, to Pat Bryant was doing an interview. And one thing he said was, you know, there's just a standard inside this locker room with this culture where, you know, we know our goal. We want to win a Super Bowl. But he said, you know, we go out there and you got, you got guys like Cortland Sutton, you got veteran guys, other veteran guys going around the locker room saying, hey, we got to have a championship practice.

Got to have a championship practice. Like that's the mentality. You've got to lock in. So I think that the Broncos have a culture where they have guys that just know how to keep that focus. I think you can crowd some of that stuff in. And when things get a little crazy and you face adversity, I think that Denver's in a better spot than they were two years ago. You know, when things got nasty two years ago,

you saw some of the nasties. If you saw how Jerry Judy reacted to a lot of the things that were going on, you saw just kind of the dysfunction in the locker room from some guys that weren't necessarily bought in to Sean's culture. Those guys aren't here anymore. And now all of a sudden, you have this Broncos team that just seems to be locked in, no pun intended there, I'm not worried about it. You know, I just think, you know, from my standpoint, I've always believed that approaching this game, whatever game the Broncos are playing one week at a time.

You know, when it comes to week one, I don't want to look to week 10. I don't want to say, okay, the Broncos record in week 10 is going to be this. No, we're here on week one. Every week is a different story. And I think if you can compartmentalize that in a sense, like, you know, for fans, because I know fans get excited. That's why fans are in the game because they have the energy. They love the excitement about what could be.

It's hard sometimes for fans of the crowd to one week at a time. So I think that Broncos country has every right to be excited. I think the hype is a fun thing. Yes, hype can be scary, but believe in it. Like if you don't believe in the hype, then, you know, what's the point of all this? Right. That's why I say 17 and 0 until we ain't. I know it's funny.

It's kind of like a, it's ridiculous to say, oh, no team's going to go 17 and no in the regular season. And somebody always comments 20 and no is if I, if I'm forgetting about the Super Bowl. I know what we're talking about here, everybody, but it's, uh,

it's that thing that like every single week, okay, you're going into Baltimore at some point. And yeah, on the surface, you're like, the Broncos probably going to lose this game because going to Baltimore,

they win like 80% of their home games. It's not a, it's not because we think the Broncos are bad. It's not because we're the most unbiased analysts out there, but because just like the team, you don't go into, your meeting rooms on Monday as a football team and say, we're going to,

we're going to go lose this game in Baltimore because they win 80% of their home games. Who freaking cares? Tell me how the team's going to win because that's, that's what we're all about. Like ultimately at the end of the day, our job is not dependent on the Broncos winning or losing. Just look over the last four years. They've done a lot more losing than winning.

But at the same time, we don't come into every single week of the season of every regular season game or every playoff game thinking like, oh, yeah, Broncos are probably going to lose and we want to be the ones who told you beforehand. No, we're going to try to think of ways that they can win the game. Like, where can they get an advantage? Because for every road game against Baltimore that you have, you have the road game against

Buffalo where you're ending a streak. You have the road game against Kansas City where you're ending a street or whatever it may be, right? So it's those types of situations like that I can't stand pessimism and skepticism being what's considered realism as opposed to being optimistic. It doesn't make sense to me because the teams aren't going into their meeting room saying, oh, we're probably going to lose this week, guys. So how do we want to go about it? It's not what they're thinking.

They're thinking 17 and 0 because every week they're saying we can win this game. How are we going to do it if we execute properly? No, we're excited to see how this Broncos team approaches not only this joint practice. We have a preseason game coming up on Saturday. We're stoked about and you should be stoked about as well. the expectations for this Broncos team are high. Can they match that? Well, it starts with them setting the standard themselves.

And we're going to be with you here every step of the way, all season long, Broncos country. What that said, that'll wrap up today's episode of the show tomorrow's episode. You know, Sarah Bedinger, myself, we got you with complete recapping coverage. What's the story coming out of the joint practice? We'll break it all down on tomorrow's episode, Lockdown Broncos. We'll see you then.