the veteran receiver\u2019s two-year deal in Denver this past offseason<\/a> didn\u2019t work out. One: Sherfield never actually talked to special-teams coordinator Darren Rizzi before he signed, and didn\u2019t feel the Broncos\u2019 special-teams scheme \u201cfit\u201d him, he told The Denver Post Monday. Two: Sherfield played more than 30% of Denver\u2019s offensive snaps in their first three games, and they went 1-2 in that stretch.<\/p>\nThe most important reason, however, is that rookie Pat Bryant simply took his job.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s when Pat started playing, and then we started winning,\u201d Sherfield said, recalling the early part of the Broncos\u2019 2025 season. \u201cSo as a coach, you\u2019re like \u2013 \u2018I gotta roll with, we\u2019re winning.\u2019 So I think that kinda played a part in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two months after the Broncos surprisingly cut bait with Sherfield midseason, though, the veteran receiver wishes no ill will. It\u2019s hard to, in the position he\u2019s in. New England snapped up Sherfield in January, and he\u2019s now on the Patriots\u2019 practice squad for this Super Bowl run. And Sherfield still considers himself a mentor to the 23-year-old Bryant, with whom he has stayed in touch since leaving Denver.<\/p>\n
A day after the Broncos cut Sherfield, Bryant broke out against the Chiefs, with five catches for 82 yards. The weeks that followed brought chaos. Bryant was strapped to a gurney and carted off after a brutal concussion late in a loss to the Jaguars in Week 16; a month later, he was knocked out with another concussion after three catches in the first quarter against the Bills.<\/p>\n
Sherfield said he spoke to Bryant after the second concussion, and that the rookie just exited the game for precautionary reasons. And the veteran said he doesn\u2019t \u201creally get worried\u201d for Bryant, even after two concussions suffered in a month. Still, Sherfield has tried to drill into the rookie the importance of taking care of his body, after Bryant exited the Broncos\u2019 AFC title-game loss to the Patriots early again with a hamstring injury.<\/p>\n
Sherfield has told Bryant to get a hyperbaric chamber. Bryant bought a hot tub for his house, and plans to install a sauna, Sherfield told The Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a kid that listens,\u201d Sherfield said. \u201cHe listens, and he loves the game. He\u2019s going to be perfectly fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is a delicate line. Bryant\u2019s fearlessness is what enamored him to the Broncos in the first place, after all. Throughout the offseason, reserve offensive lineman Alex Palczewski \u2014 who played for two years with Bryant at Illinois \u2014 sung the wideout\u2019s praises to the Broncos\u2019 locker room before Sean Payton ever drafted him in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, I don\u2019t know (expletive) about wide receiver play,\u201d Palczewski recalled telling his teammates. \u201cBut he blocks his ass off.\u201d<\/p>\n
That enamored him to Sherfield, too, even as he lost employment because of it. In the offseason and training camp, Sherfield made a quick note of how quickly Bryant would hop into special-teams drills for any role under the sun: kickoff return, gunner, jammer.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t see that as a young guy,\u201d Sherfield said. \u201cThe blocking part \u2014 once I seen he was willing to be a blocker, that\u2019s when I knew, I said, \u2018He\u2019s gonna be alright.\u2019 Like, he\u2019s gonna be OK. He wasn\u2019t worried about catching the football; he wasn\u2019t worried about none of that. He was worried about making the blocks, getting in on special teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike, he wasn\u2019t too big for that, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
Sherfield has learned in 2025 to \u201cwrite your plans in pencil,\u201d as he said. He signed to the Cardinals\u2019 practice squad a few days after the Broncos cut him in November, and then signed to the Patriots\u2019 practice squad after Arizona\u2019s season ended. New England cut Sherfield a day before the AFC Championship Game, and then signed him back last week. There has been no shred of stability since Bryant passed him up.<\/p>\n
No hard feelings. The student simply became the master.<\/p>\n
\u201cPat already had all the ability,\u201d Sherfield said. \u201cWe just had conversations, right. And he took it and ran with it.\u201d<\/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":"SAN FRANCISCO, California \u2014 Mutually, like a divorce the whole neighborhood saw coming, Trent Sherfield said he and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2062],"tags":[114,3890,232,231,258,2426,7,929,926,6,1011,1161,1813,9,3189],"class_list":["post-727624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denver-broncos","tag-afc-championship","tag-alex-palczewski","tag-broncos","tag-denver","tag-denver-broncos","tag-denverbroncos","tag-football","tag-latest-headlines","tag-more-broncos-news","tag-nfl","tag-pat-bryant","tag-san-francisco","tag-sean-payton","tag-sports","tag-the-denver-post"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116009785677941993","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}