ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Summer has officially arrived.
Following the second practice of the Broncos' mandatory minicamp, Head Coach Sean Payton announced the team would forego practice on Thursday and end its offseason program.
"This will be our last day," Payton said. "These guys will be leaving this afternoon [or] tomorrow. We won't have a practice tomorrow. [I] felt like we really had a good offseason program. Obviously, the key for all of these guys is the five-and-a-half weeks they're away of maintaining their conditioning level. There will be a few guys that stay here obviously rehabbing injuries, but overall I thought it went well."
Payton said the decision to cancel Thursday's practice was "more of a byproduct of what we've been seeing" during the offseason.
"I like where we're at," Payton said.
As Payton evaluated the offseason program, he viewed the increased level of competition as a sign the team has made positive strides.
"I'd say the competition kind of sharpens things," Payton said. "We have it at a lot of spots. It was different. It felt different this year, in a good way."
That competition in the offseason sets the stage for an important training camp and preseason.
"All of this is to prepare them for [camp]," Payton said. "Look, let's not lose track of the number one goal when camp starts: It's to arrive at the right 53. We spend a lot of time on that. Look, you don't want a player in your camp that ends up leaving and excelling somewhere else. So how do we get the exposure? Do we get enough exposures to these players so that we can make the right decisions. So it's all geared on the right 53, the right practice squad. There's a lot that goes into that. We're rooting for them all, we're coaching them hard — coaching all [of] them hard — regardless of how they got here. At this point, we've got to go by what we see."
Payton said the Broncos held a personnel meeting on Tuesday to evaluate each of the 91 players on the roster, and he said the new additions have been particularly impactful during the spring.
"I think the players that we signed, drafted or signed in free agency, man, … the new faces we felt really good about," Payton said. "You can root for them, but you don't always know."
Those new additions will join the returning players for a lead-up to the season that will feature plenty of competition and battles for roles.
After an offseason program in which the team rotated plenty of players at several different spots, Payton said training camp will mark the start of players beginning to earn reps with different units.
"We'll have a plan when we start camp, and then we'll make some decisions relative to reps, all that," Payton said. "Right now, it kind of went like we expected. [There are a] lot of good things and a lot of stuff to coach off of [and] to correct."
