Before the start of the Broncos’ offseason program, second-year receiver Courtland Sutton traveled to Florida to train with Tony Villani of XPE Sports. Sutton worked with Villani ahead of the draft in 2018, but his emphasis this time around was different.
“He’s a big speed guy,” Sutton said. “One thing I really wanted to work on (after) the season was getting my speed to a different spot, being able to be explosive after the ball gets in my hand. Not just be a guy that is a possession-catch guy; being able to get that YAC (yards after catch) and be explosive and get the ball in the end zone.”
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Expectations for Year 1 for Sutton were raised after his performance in training camp, with his highlight-reel catches and a connection with Case Keenum that appeared unflappable. But for the Broncos’ receivers room as a whole, the year took a sour turn midway through when Demaryius Thomas was traded to Houston and Emmanuel Sanders was lost to a season-ending Achilles injury a month later.
At a critical juncture late in the season, Sutton was thrown into the fire and tasked with facing opponents’ top cornerbacks.
“There were a lot of learning lessons. A lot of what was expected of a No. 1,” he said. “I’m taking all of those lessons that I learned from those last four games and taking them into this season — and taking those expectations and going to run with them. Now I know what is expected of me. I’ll make sure that I do what I’m supposed to do.”
His focus throughout the offseason has been on the details — the footwork, the route-running, the speed. Last year Sutton had 42 catches for 704 yards, with the majority of those coming at the catch point (540, or 12.9 yards per reception). After the catch, he averaged 3.9 yards. which ranked 27th among NFL receivers who played all 16 games, according to STATS, LLC.
Improving the second number was high on his to-do list.
“Really at that point in the offseason we just work on getting them real strong and powerful with his first three to six steps of a sprint and his ability to come in and out of breaks,” Villani said. “He’s such a big and powerful and physically superior guy. … If a guy like Courtland gets one step on you with his speed, his size, his power, his catch radius — if he gets space, then he’s unstoppable.”
The first year for an NFL player can be especially taxing because of their year-round schedule. They finish their college career, go right into training for the combine, begin their NFL workouts and embark on a 16-game (or more) season.
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It isn’t until their second NFL offseason that they’re able to give their body needed rest.
Sutton’s four to five weeks with Villani earlier this year was about resetting and rebuilding as much as it was about improving his explosiveness.
Sutton — who also posted photos on Instagram this offseason of him training with receiver specialist David Robinson at Southern Methodist University — is expected to return to Villani in the summer before the start of training camp. It’s then that their workouts will take a more refined approach with Sutton’s route-running and football-specific training.
The plan is to expound upon creating space, to allow Sutton to get an extra step on defenders and exploit the mismatch. Much of his teaching will come from a player who did it for 14 years in the NFL as a route-running technician: Anquan Boldin.
Boldin retired in 2017 after three Pro Bowl selections; a Super Bowl XLVII victory with Sutton’s new quarterback, Joe Flacco; and numerous receiving records.
“He works with Anquan Boldin a lot and Anquan loves him,” Villani said. “Anquan loves anyone that loves to work. … He takes what I do and takes it to another level with Courtland.”
Eyes on Fant
With two defenders in his face, Noah Fant pulled in an over-the-shoulder catch with just enough time to drag his toes inside the 1-yard line. A round of “oohs” filled the Broncos’ indoor fieldhouse from reporters and coaches alike, setting a tone for the second week of OTAs.
Monday especially, the Broncos’ first-round pick flashed the potential — and hope — to be the red-zone threat Denver has sorely lacked in recent years.
But his work is only beginning.
The Broncos spurned a chance to draft linebacker Devin Bush at No. 10 and moved back 10 spots in the first round to select Fant, one of two standout tight ends out of Iowa this year. Fant turned heads throughout the pre-draft process with a frame of a power forward (6-foot-4, 249 pounds) and the speed of a point guard (his 4.5-second 40 led all tight ends at the NFL Scouting Combine).
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“Noah has what you just can’t teach and what you don’t get to utilize very much in coaching: a guy with his size that can get down the field,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. “That really causes some real matchup issues for defensive people because normally you’re going to put a safety or a linebacker to cover him and all of sudden this guy is running almost as fast, or as fast — in our case faster than any of our receivers and probably among the top three on our entire team for speed.
“So the duress that he can cause on the minds of defensive coaches, I think it’s pretty obvious that you have to be cognizant of it. Next thing you know this guy is down the field 40 yards and, shit, who’s covering this guy?”
The kid is built to give defenders hell, and in the early going Monday, he did just that, reeling in catch after contested catch.
But the knee-jerk reaction with a high-round pick, especially in May, is to oversell early progress. The Broncos’ plan is to have Fant as an immediate contributor in an offense that features its tight ends.
Coach Vic Fangio, however, urges caution.
“Yeah, he can run. We all knew that,” Fangio said. “That was easy, but now he has to learn how to be a tight end in the NFL. He’s got tools, but you know I can go into Home Depot and walk out with a bunch of nice tools and I’m not a carpenter. We have to teach him how to be a tight end in the NFL, and he’s working great at it.”
The transition for rookies, no matter their draft status, requires time and patience that is so often ignored. (To the surprise of no one, the calls to give quarterback Drew Lock more second-team reps and to expedite his development have seemingly grown louder with each day.)
But few enter the pros ready-made for the highest level. If there was a knock against Fant during his time at Iowa it was his blocking and his strength at the point of attack.
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Wrote The Athletic’s Dane Brugler in his extensive pre-draft manual: “(Fant) is an inconsistent get-in-the-way blocker but should improve once he zeroes in on the details of the position.”
Contact and full pads are prohibited during OTAs, so Fant’s true ability at this level won’t be seen until later this summer. But his potential in an offense run by Rich Scangarello is seemingly boundless.
Last year with the 49ers, in the same offense the Broncos plan to run, George Kittle led all tight ends with 1,377 receiving yards (15.6 average), including 881 (10.0 average) after the catch.
When Fant was selected by the Broncos, he admitted that Denver was the team he eyed all along in large part because of his fit in Scangarello’s system. He saw how it fit Kittle, and the prospect of having similar success was enticing.
“Like all players that have unique traits, you have to have the type of offense system that can accentuate those traits and see how they fit within them,” Scangarello said. “I think that obviously Noah is athletic and he’s competitive. There are a lot of tight ends at Iowa that the same thing that happened to Kittle (happens). Their production gets diminished, their reps get diminished, but there is a lot of upside there. Just excited to work with him. I think he has a lot of potential as a player. I think he has it in him to be a worker to really thrive here in Denver.”
Hamilton’s high standards
Sutton isn’t the only young receiver looking for a bigger and better Year 2.
DaeSean Hamilton said his rookie year failed to meet his own standards, in part because of an injury that limited him late and cost him playing time. Against the Cardinals in Week 7, Hamilton suffered an MCL sprain that sidelined him the next two games. When he returned in Week 11 against the Chargers, he aggravated the injury but played through the pain the remainder of the season, finishing with 30 catches for 243 yards.
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“I was probably playing at like 70, 80 percent in those last couple games,” he said. “It wasn’t too much longer after the Chargers game that the knee started to feel a lot better. Now I’m coming out here, it feels great. The last four or five games, I probably felt it the most. That goes into another thing, my rookie year kind of being different. My rookie year was cut short, not really a full season or full games under my belt. Probably those last final four, five or six games.”
Two days after the season ended, Hamilton headed to Florida as well (he trained at another XPE location) to begin working toward his second season and to regain his full strength.
“I was getting my weight back on, getting back to being 100 percent healthy,” he said. “I finished the season a little banged up last year. Then, on top of that, focusing on being a lot quicker, a lot more powerful. And a lot of things I’m doing are just me working on the slot and outside, so I can just be working on versatility in all of my routes. I always make sure I’m still working hard on catching the ball. That was just working on getting a lot of the little things back, my explosiveness, my strength all back as if I was coming in from combine training. When I got back up here I felt great. I felt like I was in a good spot and ready to go.”
The Broncos retained receivers coach Zach Azzanni to provide some continuity to the young group, but the offense is new, along with the quarterback and coordinator.
So, too, is Hamilton’s role.
Eager to make up for lost time last year, Hamilton said he plans to do “whatever it takes” to meet his own high standards.
“Compared to last year what my role was to now, I’m running a lot more routes,” he said. “I’m getting to use a lot of things I can do in route running within this offense and putting me in positions where I have to beat the guy over me and find open spaces, stuff like that. …
“I think just the difference from this year from last year is just the confidence. Last year, I was thankful to be out there on the field. Now I’m more so worried about what I am doing and making sure I’m doing the right thing at all times.”
Transparency and accountability
If there’s one obvious trait about Fangio that differs from the style and rhetoric of recent years in Denver, it’s his transparency. Fangio doesn’t shy away from calling players out or acknowledging their shortcomings, no matter if it’s the franchise player or one jockeying for playing time.
Fangio was the last of five candidates to interview for the Broncos’ head-coaching job and he ultimately sold John Elway on his “death by inches” approach. Attention to detail and accountability from players and coaches alike lagged the last few years, but Fangio continues to emphasize both and make it the crux of his coaching philosophy.
At his introductory news conference in January, he said he believes Von Miller “can play even better than he’s played in his career,” a challenge that Miller openly accepted (on social media, of course).
Miller’s role in OTAs is limited given the prohibition of live contact. But his half-speed game is still often faster than many players’ full speed, evidenced by his ability to bend under tackle Ja’Wuan James with ease and quick hands that throw young linemen for a loop.
Still, Fangio isn’t willing to take it easy on a guy he says can become one of the game’s finest ever.
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“He’s got a lot to learn out there,” Fangio said when OTAs began. “Part of his job will be dropping sometimes and playing the run. He’s got to be sharp on that. He missed a thing or two today that I noticed. So it’s valuable for him. All the guys up front, it’s not NFL football, but there still can be something gained from it.”
That includes corner De’Vante Bausby, a former Chicago Bear and AAF player the Broncos signed this offseason. With Chris Harris Jr. absent from workouts (contract negotiations), Bausby has picked up more reps at corner.
So far, Fangio wants to see more.
“I think there’s been a time or two in phase two where he’s let the back-to-back season, albeit shortened, give him a reason to think he’s tired to where he shouldn’t do that,” he said of Bausby. “He has to overcome that. He has to overcome being his own worst enemy and show the player that he can be.”
Contract years
Defensive end Adam Gotsis and safety Justin Simmons have seen quite a bit of turnover in their three years as Broncos. Now they begin anew (again) with their third head coach and third defensive coordinator and, for Simmons, his third positional coach.
The expectation of both players is that the changes from the coaching staff, to the roster, to the scheme will help to pull the Broncos out of their playoff-less rut.
But individually, Gotsis and Simmons are seeking even more.
The two are among six players from the Broncos’ class of 2016 entering the final year on their rookie deals.
How they perform this season could ultimately decide their future in Denver.
“I haven’t really thought about it too much,” Gotsis said. “I would love to be here. This is the place that drafted me, they obviously wanted me here and I’ve loved my time here. I just want to keep going out and playing hard for this team and all the guys in this locker room. That’s what it’s for. That’s all going to take care of itself at the end of the year. For me, it’s just going out there and playing ball and doing my job.”
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Simmons, however, said he has given it a lot of thought.
“Another reason why I’m excited to be a part of this defense,” he said. “A chance to leave my mark on it. Obviously when it’s all said and done, if I had a choice I would stay here, not even a question of looking elsewhere or anything like that. Denver has been home to me the last three years, gave me a shot to play professional ball, and so I’m forever thankful to this organization for giving me a spot.
“On a personal level, I thought last year was OK and I’m not a mediocre guy. I want to make sure that, regardless of the situations I was put in, I know what I can do and I know what I can excel at. So I’m excited for this year, just to be able to bounce back, selfishly, and then also just get back to winning and going back to the postseason. Those are big goals for us.”
Last season Simmons was the only Broncos defender to play all 1,077 snaps and he recorded a career-high 97 total tackles (second-most on the team) and three interceptions. But he also allowed 54 completions when targeted in coverage for a total of 665 yards, per Sportradar.
The play of the Broncos’ secondary paled in comparison to previous years. Injuries played a role, but so too did performance and scheme. The Broncos allowed 56 big passes (20 yards or more) compared to 47 in 2017. Eleven of those 56 resulted in touchdowns.
The Broncos also allowed an average of 6.3 yards after the catch (28th in the NFL) and a net average of 245.6 passing yards per game (20th). Denver ranked first, first and fourth in net passing yards allowed the previous three years.
Against the run, the Broncos ranked fourth in the league after the first three games last season, allowing only 77.7 yards per game on the ground. But they plummeted to 31st four weeks later and finished the year 21st against the run (119.6 yards).
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“I think we just need to be consistent,” Gotsis said. “I think the last couple years we’ve started the season strong. We’ve been coming out with two, three wins and we’re looking really good. Then we kind of just fall into that lull of like three or four losses. Then we’re trying to gather ourselves again. So, we’ve got to come out and be consistent across all three phases — teams, defense and offense.
“Hopefully, we can figure that out quick in this preseason and come to season time with us ready to go. There’s no looking back. It’s we win a game and, ‘Who’s next?’ … It’s every week is a championship week for us.”
(Photo of Courtland Sutton: Jake Roth / USA Today)