{"id":799379,"date":"2026-07-30T08:15:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T08:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/799379\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T08:15:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T08:15:31","slug":"broncos-fully-supportive-of-jonathon-cooper-as-training-camp-opens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/799379\/","title":{"rendered":"Broncos ‘fully supportive’ of Jonathon Cooper as training camp opens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonathon Cooper practiced with the Broncos in the team\u2019s first on-field session of the 2026 season on Wednesday, a little more than a month before he is slated to be arraigned on a felony assault charge<\/a> and others related to domestic violence allegations.<\/p>\n

Cooper took part in all of the team\u2019s work and head coach Sean Payton expressed support for the outside linebacker, who was arrested twice in a week in June<\/a> on domestic violence-related charges.<\/p>\n

Payton claimed the Broncos have no say in what happens at this stage of the process, though it is entirely the team\u2019s discretion to keep Cooper on its roster.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a process relative to the league, relative to the legal process,\u201d Payton said. \u201cAnd then, as that all comes together, we can make the right decision. That\u2019s simply it. There\u2019s no follow-up. There\u2019s no other underlying. It\u2019s today\u2019s protocol. There\u2019s maybe a dozen players in other camps that are going through a similar protocol.<\/p>\n

Broncos training camp preview: Bo Nix\u2019s health, defensive questions and more | Podcast<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re proud of the work he did this last, call it month-and-a-half. It wasn\u2019t easy. And it\u2019ll continue to be a challenge and we\u2019ll see where it goes. But fully supportive of him right now as we gather all the information and then we go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Payton also indicated he thought there could be a resolution to Cooper\u2019s case \u201csooner than later\u201d despite an arraignment hearing in the case not being slated until Aug. 31 and a trial date that would come sometime after that.<\/p>\n

Payton left the door open for a final decision on Cooper\u2019s status in the organization to be made after the league\u2019s review and the court proceedings are final, but said Cooper has been \u201cfantastic with the work he\u2019s done away from the building.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cooper was first arrested June 4<\/a> after an altercation with his ex-girlfriend that escalated after the ex-girlfriend accused Cooper of cheating on her.<\/p>\n

Cooper was eventually charged with felony assault after a forensic exam<\/a> done at Anschutz Medical Center after the altercation indicated the girlfriend had been strangled.<\/p>\n

A forensic nurse who evaluated Cooper\u2019s girlfriend reported to police that the woman had experienced \u201cstrangulation with hypoxia and traumatic brain injury,\u201d the arrest affidavit reads.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegarding seriously bodily injury, it is my medical opinion that the above \u2026 patient experienced physical injury which, either at the time of the actual injury or at a later time involved\u2026 (a) substantial risk of death (and) a substantial risk of protracted loss or impairment of the function of any part or organ on the body,\u201d the nurse wrote, as the affidavit details.<\/p>\n

Cooper originally denied any physical altercation to a responding officer, according to the affidavit. After the officer asked Cooper if he grabbed his girlfriend\u2019s neck, Cooper \u201cnodded his head up and down, coupled with an mm-hmm,\u201d and said he grabbed it \u201caggressive,\u201d the affidavit reads.<\/p>\n

Payton, asked specifically about the nurse\u2019s findings, said Wednesday that he\u2019d \u201cread everything\u201d but that it would be \u201cunfair\u201d for him to comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it’s finally finished, we’ll all have a better feel,\u201d he said. \u201cIt’s unfair for me to answer any of those questions right now without having the totality of it finalized.<\/p>\n

“I think that will come sooner than later.”<\/p>\n

Cooper was arrested a week after the initial incident<\/a> after he sent 20 unreturned messages to the ex-girlfriend \u2014 several of them sexually explicit in nature and some that appear to ask her to violate a contact order \u2014 and, according to arrest records, showed up at an apartment she was staying at and pounded on the door for 5-10 minutes asking to talk with her.<\/p>\n

If Cooper is found by the NFL to have violated the league\u2019s personal conduct policy, the baseline suspension for domestic violence-related matters is six games. The league can suspend players for more or fewer games than that, depending on the circumstances.<\/p>\n

Want more Broncos news? Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jonathon Cooper practiced with the Broncos in the team\u2019s first on-field session of the 2026 season on Wednesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[16009,7,2858,765,2606,301,2863,187,3943,16078,766,19557,165,6324,6,67,9,302,8131,66],"class_list":["post-799379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denver-nuggets","tag-assault","tag-basketball","tag-broncos","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-news","tag-denver","tag-denver-broncos","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-denvernuggets","tag-domestic-violence","tag-front-range","tag-jonathon-cooper","tag-latest-headlines","tag-more-broncos-news","tag-nba","tag-news","tag-nfl","tag-nuggets","tag-sean-payton","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117007936672585275","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}