The Broncos know they still have some long-term issues to fix, but a compressed week leading into a Thursday night game isn’t going to be the week to do it
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Some weeks, NFL teams have a chance to dissect themselves, to dive into their weak points and devote extra attention to them to fix the glitches that hold them back from maximizing their potential.
Short weeks leading into Thursday Night Football do not qualify. This is the week when you focus on the tried-and-true and lean into what you do best.
Were the Broncos a band preparing a setlist for a concert, they’d play the hits. This isn’t the time to play cuts off the new album or attempt a “free-form jazz exploration in front of a festival crowd.”
“Let’s not lose track of a really good idea, but let’s keep track of how many of those,” Broncos coach Sean Payton said.
“Then let’s make sure the stuff we’re doing we’ve had plenty of work at.”
That’s because they won’t have a chance to do full-speed work on the practice field heading into Thursday night’s game against the Las Vegas Raiders. The focus has to be on the basics.
Tight end Evan Engram has learned that over the course of his career, altering his personal preparation for the compressed week accordingly.
“Just the fundamentals of football,” Engram noted. “Like, on a short week, you don’t really get a lot of time on the field to get those full-speed reps or, the clean reps to iron out details, the kind of things that you know best, the small details that you’ve done your whole life playing this game and try to put together a good game plan for a short turnaround.”
FOR BRONCOS IN A SHORT WEEK, “LESS IS MORE”
All-Pro right guard Quinn Meinerz noted that as he’s gone through his career, the most important lesson he’s learned about handling short weeks is the need to focus on rest during the roughly 100 hours between games
“I think it’s the rest and recovery,” he said. “Less is more on a short week and just really relying on — especially a late Thursday night game where it’s like, ‘OK, I know the technique, I know what I’m doing; I just need to get off my feet.”
Some of what Meinerz has learned over the years about recovery applies to other weeks, as well.
“Getting older, you have to kind of put more time into the recovery stuff. So, I’ve obviously invested a little bit more money into,the modalities and the tools, staying here more often. And we have a great ownership group that gets any type of modality that we need,” Meinerz explained.
Added Payton: “We have learned a lot relative to the recovery. Our league in general –and I say this about teaching but it’s no different than any other—there is constant advancement. How important the sleep is, and how important some of these units that we’ve invested in are.”
And then, of course, there’s the nature of on-field work. The Broncos’ practice Tuesday was a walk-through. No pads, no helmets and a slow tempo.
What was once revolutionary is now a best practice of preparing for TNF.
“The walk-through and all of those things are things that maybe years ago we weren’t as knowledgeable with,” Payton said.
And now, this is standard operating procedure for short weeks — of which the Broncos will have two this year, just as they had a pair last season. Such is the NFL’s reality; it’s simply about making the most of the least time.
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