Summer has arrived.
After concluding organized team activities earlier this month and wrapping up mandatory minicamp this week, Denver Broncos now have a break for about a month and a half leading up to training camp.
Broncos coach Sean Payton emphasizes strength training and conditioning during the spring. Football starts to heat up over the summer.
“We’re probably the only team that stays in Phase One for five weeks,” Payton said after Thursday’s practice. “So, I would say the most important thing we do is lift, change our bodies, run, condition. We’ll have plenty of time for football.
“There’s a reason we spend five weeks and we don’t even go near [football]. I don’t want them pulling into the parking lot in April thinking they’re coming to football practice. I want them coming here knowing that they’re going to get a good workout in, good lift in. So that would be the most important thing.”
It’s an offseason philosophy that Payton inherited from one of his coaching mentors, Pro Football Hall of Famer Bill Parcells.
“I remember, I had the quarterbacks and receivers [under Parcells],” Payton said. “First week, they’re lifting, and I got them out on the field. Now they’d been with us four days. He walks to the door outside the practice field, and he’s just looking at me. He says, ‘If one of these receivers gets a hamstring [injury], I’m going to have another quarterback/receiver coach.’ And he was right. In other words, we don’t know at that moment where they’re at from a conditioning and strength standpoint. So, I would say that was him.”
This summer, the pads will come on and the Broncos will host a grueling training camp, then the club will play three preseason games. After a spring spent focusing getting their body ready for the fall, Payton said players will “build a callus” over the summer. Training camp is expected to begin in late July.
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