05-16-24 Steve Atwater with Broncos Country Tonight

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
A Hall of Famer Steve Atwater inthe building with us tonight. Hey,
I'm telling you, I am impressed. I've never seen a d in this
position here one radio. This issuppressed in the radio right here, especially
you run a days. Well,I'll tell you this. We've worked but
this is the third time working together. No, this is the first time.

(00:20):
Just we're gonna say this is thefirst time. So Steve's more impressed.
Okay, so this is our firsttime working together. But yeah,
it is a tough job. Itcan be, but man, he knocks
it out the park every single time. There we go. All right,
we got three hours to praise me. But I know that people probably want
to hear about the Broncos schedule aswell. It was released yesterday. Some

(00:43):
exciting games on that schedule. Steve, When you look at it, what
stands out to you first and foremost? Oh, first and foremost. We
got to go to Seattle again fortwo times out of three years open this
season up. Now, all thedrama won't be there with Russ, but
uh, you know, still,I think there's gonna be a good football

(01:04):
game for us to start out with. Also, man, the Chiefs,
uh not only let me get I'mgonna get to the Chiefs. But playing
the AFC North, you know thatthat's gonna be a nice stretch there when
we got to play against the Ravens, we got the Browns, we got
Cincinnati, and we got the Steelers. And the Steelers are coming to us,

(01:27):
aren't they? They are Week twohome opener, the Pittsburgh Steelers.
We think Russell Wilson, I mean, everyone's talking about, Hey, this
is Russell Wilson coming back to Denver. He's got to beat out Justin Fields
and Pittsburgh first, which I knoweveryone's thinking as a foregone conclusion, but
Mike Tomlin's not saying it's a foregoneconclusion. So I'm I'm just putting a
little ass risk there that really doesit matter? Even if if Russ is

(01:52):
not the quarterback? You know howthe fans are going to react anyway.
They're they're going to be booze becausethere's a story rivalry between the Broncos and
the Pittsburgh Stillers, you know,dating back to when Peyton Manning and John
Elwi play, even when I play, because it's just those two franchises are

(02:12):
always at the bitter end where they'refighting for playoff position and for the right
to go to Super Bowl. Nowweek two, obviously that's not gonna be
the case. But I mean,Russ did not leave on you know,
I guess good reasons, so fanswill still a little upset, and whether
he's starting or not, they're gonnalet him know. Yeah, it obviously

(02:32):
would be a more exciting game ifRuss is starting. And I do think
sitting here right now in May,before we get to training camp and all
that that, it's all it's likelythat Russ is gonna be the guy,
Steve. When you think about thatmatchup from a football perspective, having Russ
come back, it will be anew offense for him. It's a good

(02:53):
a really good Pittsburgh defense. Typicallythose teams are always well coached under Mike
Tomlin, and that's gonna be,in my mind, a difficult game,
whether or not Russ is the quarterbackor not. But when you look at
it from a football perspective, justwhat sort of challenges that well, I
would say that as as a team, I know that when I looked at

(03:15):
the schedule as a player, Ididn't really go down the list saying,
oh man, we got we gotPittsburgh the shaken week. It's the schedule
is what it is. So froma player's stamp, boy, I'm knowing
not a player it any longer.But from a player standpoint, I would
imagine they're wondering, what's all thehoopla about? They get they got to
play the game regardless, you know, if it's going outside, if it's

(03:38):
reigning, if it's ninety degrees outside, they got to play the game.
Uh So, I don't think it'ssuch a big deal to the players,
But yeah, people make a big, a huge deal a lot of this
whole whole situation with you know,when we play teams, who's on the
team all it doesn't matter though,Yeah, and I mean even year to

(04:00):
year, right Nick, the turnoverfrom roster to roster, Like a bunch
of the guys that played with Russlast year aren't here anymore. And we're
just a few months rose. Imean, Jerry Judy's not here anymore,
Justin Simmons, Josie Jewell. Imean, you can keep going down the
list. There's a bunch of newguys on the roster along the defensive line,

(04:20):
offensively, got some new receivers.I mean, is different. It's
a different group, even though it'sgonna be nine months after they played a
game together. And so that's whereSteve, I think you're right. The
schedule and all these matchups and thenarratives is a fan thing, right,
more than a player thing. MaybeI would say it is. It's both

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because let's talk about from a fansstandpoint, trying to figure out which game
that you're going to go to froman away standpoint, and the reason why
these schedules mean so much more nowthan maybe they did years ago because fantasy
football, everyone is engaged from afantasy football fans. They could be die

(05:04):
hard Broncos fans, but have DeVanteAdams from the Raiders on that fantasy team,
so they are kind of entangled inthe web of football. Like that's
why when you think about streaming andhow the league is putting in so many
games of streaming services, fyans haveto watch even if they don't want to

(05:24):
stream the service, they're still goingto do it. From a players standpoint,
yeah, Eric, like you said, this is a roster that has
a lot of new faces and alot of new faces who are going to
be started for the first time asa player. You want to make sure
that you're not only able to competeagainst the guys in your room in your
building. Well, you want tobe able to go out on a Sunday,

(05:46):
Thursday night or Monday night and reallyshow other fans outside the market that
you still can compete. And let'sbe totally honess, there are a lot
of indiviewual from a national and localstandpoint that are not looking. He had
the Broncos as being somewhat of aplayoff contender and and I and I understand
why that is the case, Butyou want the guys to go out and

(06:09):
compete, and the Broncos finally havetheir quarterback of the future. No matter
how the season winds down, we'regonna get a chance to see a lot
of bow knicks and what he couldpotentially bring to the organization. So that's
why the schedule means a little somethingto the players and the fans alike.
I have quite what positions do youthink will be most impacted by the changes.

(06:35):
I know we're gonna have a newcenter because Lloyd Chustien Barry is no
longer here. It's gonna be anice battle with the receivers. Jerry Judy
not being here anymore, Courtland suddenhe's holding out right now. We're not
one hundred percent sure where that's gonnagonna go. Hopefully he's here. He's
here. We know he's one ofthe starters. But what position is most

(06:59):
interesting to you guys in terms ofnew guys and also a competition. Well,
obviously it's it's quarterback because I knowit is part of the most obvious
one I know. But I'm justsaying because that position affects everyone else.
You're talking about the new receivers.No, it's going to impact it.

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Would you say that because of theBroncos drafting bow Knicks in the first round,
that a majority of Broncos country isthinking that Brownicks is going to be
the start, starting quarterback. Absolutely, because that is always the consensus when
a player at that position is takenin the first first round, whether it's

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ten or six, whatever it is, the idea is that you were drafted
for a reason. And knowing thoughthe Broncos really don't have a Day one
quarterback because Zach Wilson was traded rightbefore bo Knicks was drafted, that the
incumbent is Jaristinham. But you stillhave to say, Okay, well,
if there was a lot of confidenceinstead him, why those two moves.

(08:01):
So you have to figure that everyone'srooting for Bonnicks to be that guy.
Yeah, yeah, I mean,at some point or another, Bonnix is
gonna get a chance to be theguy. We'll see if it's week one,
we'll see if it takes a littlebit more time. But certainly they
drafted him because they think he canbe the guy. They see all the
necessary pieces there, and you don'tjust take a guy in the first round

(08:24):
and then not give him that chance. And I'm not gonna go crazy the
way that I've seen some tweets outthere, but he did look good in
rookie minnie camp and he made somenice throws, quick, decisive, made
good decisions, I mean, inthings that you want to see at rookie
mini camp. And it's just rookiemini camp, right, so let's not
make it more than it needs tobe. But it was encouraging, I

(08:46):
thought, And so we'll see howit all plays out during training camp in
the preseason. But I would thinkthat sooner rather than later, you're probably
gonna see Bonnicks out on the fieldleading this team because that to me,
we talk about the schedule and whichgames are important, which ones are exciting,
what's the toughest stretch. To me, this season is all about can
you get bo Nicks ready for andhey, if it's a run this year

(09:09):
toward the playoffs, that's great.But moving forward, we keep hearing the
Broncos talk about and we've heard GregPenner say this, George Peyton, Sean
Payton, we're building for the future, but we also want to be competitive
now and so part of this istrying to be competitive now but making sure
that moving forward you have that guyin bow that can get you back to

(09:31):
where this franchise expects to be.But that is the operative word competitive,
right You want the team to becompetitive. You want every single week Bob
touches the field, if he's starting, that you can see what we saw
when he was a member of theOregon Ducks. You want to see growth
from week to week, even ifthat means though it ends up in the

(09:54):
Broncos loss by six points and threepoints, what's their growth? Are there
things that you can build on andas players, that makes you really optimistic
about the people upstairs making their decisions. About the players that they have recently
assembled, by the quarterback that they'resaying he is the future of the organization.
You want to see growth because Ididn't play with Elway. You did,

(10:18):
but I played with Jay Cutler andJake Plumber, and every week we
saw something great for either guy whenthey were in and especially Jake Plummer.
It made you want to go outand do your job as a defender and
play well. Study. Well,that's what the Broncos are hoping, in
my opinion, to get out ofthis season. Yeah, and there's going
to be some competition at that position, don't I don't think that bow Nicks

(10:41):
is just going to be handed thatposition. No, he's not. And
I would say that that Zach Wilson, he's pretty motivated as well to show
people that hey he's not a bust. You know, he's the second pick
in the draft. What how manyyears ago? Three years ago, twenty
twenty one, come on, AndI don't think that many people made it

(11:01):
in error, in judgment. SoI believe it's gonna be some great competition
in camp, and I just don'tthink that it's a shoe in that bow
will be starting the first game now. Eventually, Willie, obviously, I
think so. But I think thatit's gonna be some great competition and iron

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sharp and sharp as iron. They'regonna make each other better, and that's
gonna make the team better. They'regonna make the defense better because they're gonna
be throwing some accurate passes. Receiversgonna be catching some great passes, and
they're gonna make the whole team better. The great thing about adding competition at
every position that it's supposed to makeeveryone better. And I know everyone's fighting

(11:48):
for jobs, but I've been inplaces before where I've been fighting for jobs
with other guys and we it's almostlike you're breaking your rule. Because when
I was coming up as a youngplayer, some older players wouldn't do what
I'm about to tell you, whichis share information with the young guys you're
competing with, right, because it'slike, well, we are all on

(12:09):
the same team, we're fighting fora job. But if Steve plays well,
guess what I have to do.If I'm trying to fight to make
the team. If I'm Jel Skinner, I have to up my ante.
So that means just guess what PJ. Locke has to elevate his level of
play. Kayden Stearns has evlate toexcuse me, elevate his level play.
Brandon Jones, I think that's hisname, Brandon Jones. They all have

(12:30):
to take their game to new heights. So that's gonna make the overall team
that much better. It's going tomake the decision when the coaches get in
the room and they sit down andsay, okay, well let's put our
roster together. Who do we haveand are too deep? Right? You
want to make sure as a playerthat you make it so tough on those
coaches when they get in those meetings. And for me, I can't wait

(12:52):
to see what that quarterback room islike from a relationship standpoint, each guy
leaning on the other guy to somewhathelp them out. At the end of
the day, the Broncos could haveall three of those quarterbacks on his roster.
I agree, I agree, andI think that's important. Well,
you talk about older guys helping out, mentoring even as it's a competition,

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and maybe you know, we heardifferent things from veterans. Some say it's
a younger guy's job to come tome and take notes, not my job
to help them. I mean,you're all sorts of different things. That
guy doesn't really exist in the Broncosquarterback room at the moment, right.
I mean Davis Webb, who isthe coach, is the closest thing to
a veteran in that room. Imean Jared Stidham's obviously played, He's been
in the league four or five years, but from a playing perspective, hasn't

(13:37):
started all that many games. DoesYeah, Zach has Moore starts in the
NFL, but he's coming into anew system on the same page as Bo,
So there's no advantage there in termsof learning Sean Payton's system. And
I think back to the owners meetingsback in you know, end of March,
Sean Pete was I think he wasasked about quarterbacks learning from veterans,

(14:00):
and I think it was specific toJordan Love, and he basically talked about
the benefit of if there's that veteranthere to teach a young quarterback, then
it can make sense to sit.But if that veteran is not necessarily in
place here in Denver. And Bogoes out and there's going to be very
specific, you know, he gotthere and he chart throws and oh this
guy threw a pick. This guycompleted seven of eleven passes. This guy

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completed eight of twelve passes. Seanpaions made it pretty clear what he's looking
for. He's looking for good decisions, don't take sacks, acts, don't
turn the ball over. I mean, those are the things that he accuracy.
I mean, those are the thingsthat he's going to want to see.
And so I think it's going tobe Obviously, you wanted to be
a close competitive situation where each guyhas a good day and then kind of

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makes their claim, But I thinkit's going to be clear at some point
like this is the guy based onwhat they're doing out there. And I
think Bose got just as good achance as any of them, even though
he's a rookie because he started somany games in college and has all this
experience. And Zach doesn't know thesystem. He's coming in learning it,
and Jared it just has a coupleof games of starting experience in it.
But this is where, believe itor not, I feel Zach Wilson comes

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in as a veteran. He's hadthe most starts out of any of these
guys, more than Jared's did himand even though a lot of his starts
ended up in a lot of failure. This is where I believe it could
be a strength for Zach Wilson becausehe can tell both Nicks what it's like
to be a first round quarterback andbe subjected to so much pressure. What

(15:33):
he did wrong in his first coupleof years with the Jets that he should
have changed. Now Bow can leanon that, even though I know it's
not a resume that we're saying,Okay, well, Zach Wilson won of
the thirty one games he played,he won twenty of those games. No,
he can tell you about those failures, and believe it or not,

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it's not, in my opinion,your successes that actually help you along.
It's the failures because you learn fromthose things. Hopefully you do. And
this is why I feel as thoughZach can be a key cog and helping
Bo Nicks grow as a quarterback.Don't make the mistakes that I make,
even though he'll be learning a newsystem for the first time. Yeah,

(16:15):
well, I think the battle isgoing to be great and the players,
the other players on the team willbe watching this playout as well. Right
and after every practice, Hey man, Bo nixt he threw some dimes or
man fa Wilson Man you see himscrable out of there and make that play.

(16:38):
Are guys talking about that in thelocker room? Yes, so you
guys as defenders. If you werein the locker room and you know,
Steve, I know you said youdon't play anymore. I've seen you in
the lunch line. You still gotthe speed to hit the hit the gap.
You'd be in there. You guysthink you'd know before the coach said,
hey, this guy's gonna start preseasongave one. You think you know

(16:59):
you have a great, great feelfulbecause you've played again. You're playing against
them and he's completing passes against you, or he's throwing the ducks that you're
catching and intercepting and taking back.So you're ca I mean, I mean,
bobble it a little bit, butstill gonna be But yes, I

(17:19):
know what Steve is talking about.Because one of these quarterbacks is going to
be pisciled in as a starter,so he's going to be playing against the
second team defense. The other guysare going to be playing against, you
know, the first team defense asthe backup. So if you get a
backup performing well against the starting defense, the coach is going to go back
in the meeting and say, youknow what, I think that guy has

(17:41):
earned more reps with the starting team. That's how it was. I mean,
that's how I was able to geton the field myself. Someone got
injured and they said, well,let's throw him in with the starting defense.
And that was all based on whatI was doing against the starting offense
to try to give me an opportunity. So this is why the competition is
going to be great because it's goingto be an on off type of situation.

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We know there's not a single playerthat's ever played this game, even
in practice, that didn't have anoff day. So it's like, how
do you respond to that off daymentally and how do we read that body
language? But players on the oppositeside of the ball they always know first
because they could say, well,man, did you see, like Steve
said, Zach, just the waythat he was able to throw that ball

(18:22):
on the line in the scene andscored a touchdown. That was that That
was one of those throws that everyone'sgoing to be like, ooh, and
I the kiuse it reminds me ofwhat it was like when Teddy Bridgewater was
here and it was competing against DrewLot, everyone was looking for those ooh
throws. So that kind of drawthe line between where we see the quarterback.
But Drew made the throws back then, but he also unfortunately made the

(18:45):
oh y And so I think thatthat's what you're going to have to see
here too, is like Sack Wilsonmay make the wow throws, but if
BOE's more consistent or Jared Simms workconsistent, I mean at all into it
right, and it'll get to apoint to where it's obvious of who's the
guy that's and you hope that itdoesn't happen, and you hopeully hopefully they're

(19:07):
both playing really well and tough decision. But that's the kind of competition they
got to bring the training camp.They gotta they gotta be ready, man,
they got to come with everything theygot. Yes, if you want
to start at the NFL and bean elite player, you got to be
on your game all the time.Even when you are not on your game,
you have to do something that makesyou stand out something. Luckily,

(19:32):
we played defense and once you puton the pads, that was aweso you
wrote that great stuff about the quarterbacks, Fells, I want to talk more
when we come back about the primetimegames that these quarterbacks could be playing in.
We will be right back here onBroncos Country tonight on KOA eight fifty
AM and ninety four to one FM. Fellas, what do you think two
primetime games? Is it a littledisrespectful or does it sound about right?

(19:56):
To be honest, I think thatthat's about right. You got to play
your wins to those big time games. And I think we're going to be
a better team this year. Ithink it's just gonna take a little a
while few years for Sean to getthe Sean Payton type guys that he wants

(20:18):
in the building. Uh now doeshe have more? Yeah, he got
got more than he did last year. But I don't think it's fully complete.
But he's getting there. He's gettingthere. He's getting there, and
I think it's a proven year ina lot of ways for a lot of
guys in that guys are gonna showwhat they're about, what part, what

(20:45):
role do they play on this team, especially if you look at this as
a team that wants to be competitivenow, but it's building for the future.
If this team you know, isgoing to try to contend in twenty
five or whatever, you know whichguys are going to be here and be
the key pieces on the team,be key starters, be key contributors.
And I think it expands to theteam as a whole in terms of prove

(21:07):
it. If you want playoff games, excuse me, primetime games. Play
well early in the season, havea winning record, Get that game against
the Chiefs in week ten, flexedinto primetime. Get that game late in
the season against Cincinnati, flexed inat primetime. Yeah, I mean,
if you play well and you havea winning record, and you guys know,
people pay attention. Sean Payne talksabout that a lot. The good
teams tend to play in primetime andplay in these exclusive windows. The bad

(21:30):
teams or the teams that are buildingdon't tend to do that as much.
And so if you're a player andyou look at that and you say,
man, we should be playing inprimetime, more will go show that you
should deserve that. I don't knowhow much you guys paid attention to how
often you got to play on Sundaynight football or Monday night football. I'm
sure Thursday night football wasn't necessarily atthe top of the list. No one

(21:52):
really loves to play on Thursday night, even though some consider that Thursday night
game giving you like a second byeweek what it does to your body.
But you guys are absolutely right.In order to get those primetime games,
you have to really show what youcan do on the field and is based
on results, and there's a lotof uncertainty right now with the Denver Broncos
having a young quarterback, and whenyou look at other teams like the Cowboys,

(22:17):
the Jets, and the forty nineers, all three of those teams
have six primetime games. The allthe other team, the Kansa City Chiefs,
they have five, and even thinkthat they would have more, being
as though they are the reigning champs. I mean they've been in Super Bowl
four time, three titles in thatparticular time. So you have to go
out and you have to play.And the reason why most players want to
play on prime time because there areno other games on. Everyone gets a

(22:41):
chance to see you and anyone that'sever said anything negative about you, you
get to show them on prime time. Because I remember my first Monday night
football game. Here we were playingagain to Rich Gannon and the Raiders,
and John Madden was on a calland I remember I made to tackle on

(23:02):
special teams after the game had liketwenty two messages. Twenty two messages.
That's how much of a brand builderthose primetime games can be for players.
Brand brand, brand building. Neveryou worried about what no, I wasn't
worried about that now around it.So it was like, this is the

(23:29):
idea of saying, okay, wellyou are like I was a reserved safety
and that was known for playing onspecial teams to go out and have several
big plays that kind of swung thegame in our favor on special teams,
that that was big. And forMadden to say just to you know,
we see it all the time everytime before a game is played, guys

(23:51):
faces of flash where they say,you know, hey, Nick Fergus and
uh, you know Ponciana Elementary.Right, you put your city on the
map once. Don't want like JohnMadden says, your name that is big.
That was big for me. Followme on TikTok. That's why you
want to play in primetime? Right? Well, the big those primetime games

(24:11):
are are very nice. It doesgive you the publicity, but if you
don't play well, guess what.But also the other side of that is,
man, everybody sees how bad youare it up in a different posts.
Yeah yeah, but you know,the good teams do playing those games
because they tend to make more plays. And I think that we're going to

(24:33):
surprise some more people and some ofthe games that in the season are going
to be flexed in our in ourin our direction. So it's not like
it's set like back in the daythose games was set. The schedule was
set. Now, hey you gotsix games flex Oh you start to play
bad? Okay, oh you youonly have you only have three games primetime.
Here's another way that the players shouldlook at the situation, not having

(24:56):
as many primetime games. First underststanding why you don't, but being upset
that you don't and going out andplaying well against other teams. Right,
this is a way that the Broncoscan really change things because no one is
expecting them to do anything with asfar as the conference is concerned or the
division. You can go out andsmack people around and just say, you

(25:19):
know what, I know before thegame, you took us lightly. You
didn't even think that you even hadto study, but watch just show you
something. So it should be somethingof a motivator for the players that they
get a chance to go out andthey're the unadog the entire season and they
get a chance to kind of flipthings on their ears with every team they
play against. I mean, Ido think it's a bummer from a standpoint

(25:41):
of talented players who deserve a ProBowl or an All Pro don't get the
visibility that they need. I thinkback, maybe it's twenty twenty, twenty
twenty one, Bradley Chubb had agreat game in primetime against New York and
that basically fueled him to a ProBowl selection because everybody watched that game and
said, man, Bradley Chubb's reallygood. And then there are times where
it feels like, oh, maybepats Ertan's not on national TV as much

(26:04):
as he could be, and andSauce Gardner is gonna be in primetime what
like fifteen times this year, andso Sauce is not a better dB,
and so right, so Pa couldplay just as well or better. But
if but if Sauce is in primetimea bunch and gets interceptions, then you're
gonna look at it and be like, oh, Sauce got another All Pro

(26:25):
and then over pat. I meanthat that hurts your pocket too, Yeah,
because if you have a contract thathave incentives, if you make the
Pro Bowl, that's taken out ofyour pocket because you're absolutely right, and
fans vote on that based on howmany times I've seen the guy on television,
so he's he's on television a lot. I see him, so he
must be good, so I mightas well check his bots. That's not

(26:47):
always one full proof plan. Andfewer people are gonna swipe up on your
Instagram to buy whatever if you're selling. I mean it hurts, It hurts
you all. I do think thereis something though, when you're not playing
in primetime, the consistency of playingSunday after Sunday after Sunday, getting into
a routine. I mean last year, a couple of years ago, there's

(27:11):
some weird weeks. Maybe this letsthe guys just get in a rhythm.
You don't worry about the other stuffyou worry about football, You just play.
Maybe it helps from that standpoint.Yeah. Now I heard you saying
something about we had some earlier games. We had some quite a few early
games this year too, Right,there's a lot of a lot of am
eleven am. You know, theJets, the Buccaneers, Baltimore, Kansas

(27:36):
City, there's I think I believethere's four, and then you've got the
West coast kind of quote unquote earlystarts at one pm. So there's gonna
be some games that the Broncos lastyear may not have. Sean Payton said
this, at the end of theyear, we got to figure out the
early starts how to get going.It seemed like in Houston, for example,
they got off to a slow start. They're gonna have to figure that

(27:56):
out in terms of how do wehow do we get ready to go,
because you can't have a slow startin Tampa or a slow start in Baltimore,
or it's not going to go wellthose early practices. That's the way
you handle it. If you knowthat you have an early eleven AM game
that week, every practice, everymeeting is kind of like an hour or

(28:18):
two hours earlier, so your bodyis acclimated. So once you hit the
field, you're not just waking up. Because once you get to the game
and they kick the ball off,you don't have wake it up. In
the second half, like, oh, yeah, I'm here. Yes,
I don't think we did that.I Mike didn't do that with you guys.
I don't think so, because Idon't think so, and I know

(28:40):
we didn't do it. Did thepractice in the evens half of Monday night
games? I know didn't what anesee Monday night games. We would at
least have one practice, one practicewalk through at the stadium if it was
a home game for to get guyskind of acclimated to what Monday night football
would be in the evening. Nowyou guys never did that. Well,
watch you guys. Ms here.Well, we're at break, but we

(29:00):
got to head over to KOA TrafficCenter. Here. Stave O'Brien back here
on Broncos Country Tonight on KOA eightfifty am and ninety four to one FM.
I'm obviously here filling in for BenjaminAlbright. We got Nick Ferguson,
got the Hall of Famer Steve atWater. Hey, guys, we were
just talking about the Denver Broncos twentytwenty four schedule, some of the primetime

(29:23):
games. What it means that thatthey've only got a couple this season.
The other thing that stands out tome about this schedule, Fellas is three
of four to start on the road. It's the first time in sixty two
years, way since nineteen sixty two, that the Broncos have played three of
their first four games on the road. And it's kind of a weird schedule.

(29:45):
They go three or four on theroad, three or four at home,
another three of four on the road. They've only got back to back
home games once the whole season.That's against the Raiders and Chargers leave weeks
five and six. Steve is,especially if it's a rookie quarterback in bo
Nicks, but regardless, to startthree or four on the road, what

(30:07):
sort of challenges that Can it bringa team together when you've got that much
time on the road or do youjust look at that and say, man,
that's a tough break. Well,it's going to be a little tougher
just because of the communication and youknow that the fans are going to be
super loud, especially knowing that youhave a first year rookie quarterback playing.

(30:30):
But at the same time, ifwe have our communication down, if bo
Nicks knows the knows all the audiblesand knows all the hands signals to make
the adjustments. Hey, it's it'sno big deal. It's only a big
deal when you can't make your adjustmentswhen they make too much noise. And
then not having that home field advantage, that love that you get from the

(30:53):
home field. When you run outout of the stadium, everybody's clapping for
you. Now, everybody's blowing you. So just if you can get into
if the players can get into themind frame of I don't care where we
play, I don't care what theysay. I'm still going to still come
out and give it my all andthem will be the best player out here
in the field. Hey, itwon't be a probably, don't matter where

(31:15):
you play. He's got to thinkabout it like this way. He's played
in a lot of high profile games, whether playing in Auburn or playing in
Oregon, and the mentality has gotto be all week leading up to that
first game of the season, thatI'll play you in Walmart parking lot.
You just tell me what time andI'll show up. That's got to be
his mentality because whether you're home orwhether you're away, you have to take

(31:38):
that mentality with you because when yougo on the road, it is you
and your teammates versus everyone else.And the easiest way to get a young
quarterback kind of in the flow isthose quick short passes. And we know
Bo's done a lot of that inOregon, and he's got a guy on
his team in Troy Franklin who thatchemistry for me, that's that would be

(32:00):
the first thing I go to rightaway to settle bow down. Throw a
past to Troy. Let that getyou in somewhat of a rhythm, and
now let's go and you know you. But again, they got to have
a communication down because he could bestaying in as close ass and you can't.
You won't even be able to hearyou. They won't no hands like

(32:22):
out there talking to a mine.But right, that's what I'm saying.
You gotta have that down pad bythe start of the season, and then
these it won't be such a bigdeal. That's when you go solid count.
Everything is going to be on solidcount and you do it in practice.
Well, I mean we say that, and then two years ago in
Seattle there was all sorts of communicationissues on offense. I mean two goal

(32:44):
line fumbles, offensive lineman not gettingthe change play call in the audible knowing
that what they're running up there.I mean it's easy to say, oh,
you run silent count. It's alittle bit more difficult, I think,
to actually to do it. Butthat's where I think having Sean Payton
as your head coach and for eventhough the Broncos obviously didn't achieve the ultimate

(33:05):
goal last year of making the playoffsand makeing a little run, in so
many ways, the team just lookedlike a well coached team and I think
that's going to help him out onthe road. Yeah, that's going to
definitely helped him out. But sometimesin order to silence the crowd, you
got to punch him in the mouth. So that means on that first possession,

(33:25):
you have to be aggressive. Andthat might just mean on the first
play you take a shot, whetheryou complete it or not. So that's
going to back that defense off andthen it opens up everything else that you
can do underneath. But when yougo on the row, I mean,
you gotta play with your defense andyou gotta have a run game that is
really physical. That's why I likeEstimate, Right, that's one of those

(33:46):
guys who can prove to be abig boost for the Broncos on the road.
At estim. That's right. We'lltalk more about this guys Nick as
we go along in the show.Unfortunately, Steve Atwater, he's got a
head off, sign some autographs,get that gold jacket back on and uh

(34:07):
and we got a head to breakhere on Broncos Country Tonight on KOA eight
fifty am in ninety four one FM.