Attendance
Physically Unable to Perform list — OL Nick Gargiulo. Non-football injury list — ILB Jordan Turner.
Did not practice — WR Jaylen Waddle (muscle strain), C Luke Wattenberg (shoulder), TE Caleb Lohner (foot/ankle), OLB Dasan McCullough, DL D.J. Jones (rest), DL Malcolm Roach (rest), ILB Alex Singleton (rest), LT Garett Bolles (rest), S Brandon Jones (rest).
Left practice — DL Matt Henningsen, WR Marvin Mims Jr. and TE Nate Adkins.
Two Broncos stars moved in the right direction, but it was a brutal day overall on the injury front for the club. First, the good: WR Courtland Sutton was essentially a full participant after three rest days in a row. OLB Nik Bonitto continued to do more work, too. He had pads on and did individual work, though he’s not yet back to team reps.
The injuries started early in practice, though, when defensive lineman Matt Henningsen had to be carted off after an injury in individual drills. Henningsen, a source confirmed to The Post, tore his Achilles tendon.
Henningsen was visibly emotional after the injury and had his head in his hands as the cart took him into the Broncos’ facility. Making matters even more unfortunate: Friday marked exactly one year since Henningsen ruptured his Achilles in a joint practice against San Francisco. Head coach Sean Payton and others had raved about Henningsen’s recovery and about the offseason he’d had to this point.
Last year, of course, Henningsen’s August Achilles injury cost him the entire season.
Later in practice, Marvin Mims Jr. was running a deep route and pulled up hobbling while grabbing at his upper left leg. He tossed his helmet on the ground, sat on a water cooler and talked with a trainer before walking into the facility. He walked in with tight end Nate Adkins, who also left practice due to an apparent injury during a team period.
Quarterback Bo Nix (10) of the Denver Broncos throws during practice on Friday, August. 7, 2026, at Broncos Park in Centennial, Colo.(Photo by Timothy Hurst/The Denver Post)
Bo Nix delivered a beauty of a two-minute drill
The Denver defense has regularly had the upper hand in recent days and particularly so in situational practice periods, but the offense hit back on Friday.
Quarterback Bo Nix led a clinical two-minute drive for what would have been a game-winning touchdown.
The situation on the scoreboard: Offense trailing by four with 1 minute, 21 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter and one timeout remaining. Ball on the offense’s own 39-yard line.
The drive started with cornerback Riley Moss batting away a pass for Sutton, but then Nix caught fire. He completed passes to Pat Bryant and Evan Engram for a first down, then hit Lil’Jordan Humphrey in the middle of the field to get to the 35-yard line. With the clock running and 32 seconds remaining, the offense used its timeout.
Nix then made his best throw of the drive, hitting Sutton again on a deep in-breaker for 27 yards. The drive culminated with an 8-yard lollipop to a wide-open Engram in the back of the end zone. Seven plays, 61 yards and a game-winner with 18 seconds left on a drive that took just 1:03 of game time.
Nix thrives in two-minute and wide-open situations, and that’s been the case again so far through camp. When the pace is fast, and he’s playing in a free-wheeling manner, good things happen more often than not.
Thumbs Up
In the Kage. Broncos rookie offensive Kage Casey has a lot to learn and likely isn’t going to be counted on to play on offense right away, but he shows flashes of what Denver liked about him in April’s draft. Take a one-on-one period between offensive linemen and defensive front-line players on Friday. He went against fellow rookie and third-round pick Tyler Onyedim three times and stoned him each time. Casey has good hands, gets them in the right place and then has enough power to work from there. Denver coaches and personnel people have thought since the draft that Casey could play any of the five spots over the course of time. So far in camp, he’s been predominantly at guard behind Ben Powers. Casey, if all goes well for Denver, may be in for a developmental year, but he’s already showing signs of being part of the puzzle down the road.
Thumbs Down
Tough day for tackles. On the other end of the spectrum in one-on-ones, Alex Palczewski and Frank Crum each took their lumps at times. Palczewski got roasted by Jonah Elliss around the edge on one rep. On the next, Elliss set him up to the outside, spun back inside and beat him clean. In those instances, it’s always possible the tackle knows he’s going to have help inside. But Elliss has been a handful overall. Crum had a good rep against Drew Sanders, but he lunged at Dondrea Tillman and fell to the ground as the edge man flew by him on another snap.
Odds and Ends
* Sort of funny with Payton leaving for the airport right after walkthrough, but Friday was Denver’s best day running the football so far in camp. The Broncos got good movement up front — Jones and Roach being off for the day undoubtedly didn’t hurt that effort — and produced high-quality space between the tackles for most of the Broncos’ backs.
* Maybe it’s making a mountain out of a molehill, but Friday’s practice was quiet. Oddly quiet. Not in terms of action but literally. Some of that may be Payton leaving practice early on. Some of it is that Jones and Roach are among the group’s energizer bunnies. Some air seemed to come out of the session after Henningsen’s injury. It’s also the fifth straight day of work. Whatever the reason or reasons, there just wasn’t much juice on Friday.
* Two of the Broncos’ undrafted rookie wide receivers are starting to make plays consistently: Cam Ross and Kolbe Katsis. Each was at it again Friday, with Katsis hauling a deep ball and Ross continuing to pop. It’s a tough route to the 53-man roster, but they’re good, solid practice squad prospects.
* Broncos inside linebacker Justin Strnad said he put on a few pounds of muscle over the course of the offseason, bumping up from 234 pounds to 238 or so. However, then he got sick last week and lost several pounds just ahead of a six-day work week under the Colorado sun. So, Strnad may not be fully back up to the weight he reported at early last week, but he looks comfortable next to Alex Singleton atop Denver’s inside linebacker depth chart.
* Speaking of that position, rookie Red Murdock is starting to make plays more and more consistently. He forced a fumble in 7-on-7 on Friday, a hallmark of his collegiate career at Buffalo when he set an FBS record with 17 career forced fumbles. Murdock is a bit undersized, but he has a nose for the ball and seems to end up in the right place at the right time. If he strings more weeks together like this one, he’ll push his way toward – or perhaps well into – the two-deep.
* The Broncos on Friday signed wide receiver Kyre Duplessis to their roster, a source confirmed to The Post. Duplessis is a rookie who went undrafted in April and spent time recently on Seattle’s roster. Duplessis played four years at Coastal Carolina before transferring to Delaware for the 2025 season. He caught 60 passes for 824 yards and five touchdowns last fall for the Blue Hens. In a corresponding move, Denver waived cornerback Jaden Robinson with an injury designation, according to the league’s transaction wire. Robinson spent all of 2025 on the Broncos’ practice squad.
* The Broncos announced Friday morning that they are closing their Wednesday, Aug. 12 training camp practice to the public. The session had originally been slated to be open for fans. Instead, there are just two open days next week — Monday and Tuesday — before the team has the closed practice Wednesday and then travels to Atlanta on Thursday for its Friday preseason opener. Denver is now set to hold 13 total open camp practices.
Next: 10 a.m. Saturday, a modified scrimmage-type practice. Parking opens at 8 a.m. and gates at 9 a.m.
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