The summer heat gets to us all, and tempers flared during Tuesday’s practice at Denver Broncos training camp.
Denver Broncos training camp gets chippy in ultra competitive day
The Denver Broncos entered their 14th day of training camp on Tuesday in full pads, as the heat of the sun swarmed over Dove Valley. Tempers, too, eventually got hot and boiled over, but this is football.
#BroncosCamp Day 15: Full pads, ultra competitive, and chippy practice. Broncos O scores in RZ period, Defense wins move the ball period.
Troy Franklin had a helluva day. pic.twitter.com/qIeaVxLVd1
— Cody Roark (@CodyRoarkNFL) August 18, 2026
The Broncos opted out of holding any joint training camp practices with any of their preseason opponents this season, and typically in a practice like today, the competitive juices and eventual chippiness would have taken place with another team. This Broncos unit is tight-knit, and they have a strong player-led team culture, but that doesn’t make them exempt from getting frustrated with one another.
Tuesday’s practice featured a variety of competitive team periods, where the team’s focus was best-on-best. The first skirmish of the day began in one team period that saw rookie tight end Justin Joly grab a defensive player after a play, which led to three more defensive players getting involved. There was grabbing and jawing, but no punches were thrown.
In a later team period, Joly took a shot across the middle of the field from fellow rookie linebacker Taurean York, which led to a cascade of Broncos defensive players celebrating the stick by York, and led to Joly tossing a ball at outside linebacker Que Robinson after the second-year pass rusher let him hear about it. Nothing escalated.
Bo Nix and the Broncos offense traded some barbs with the defense throughout the day in various periods. Denver’s offense got the best of the defense in a specific goal-line red-zone period, with Nix tossing touchdown passes to Troy Franklin and one to Courtland Sutton, who rose above Riley Moss and snagged it. The entire offense ran down into the end zone and surrounded Sutton as he spiked the ball, with the offense collectively yelling “BOOM” as the ball fell back down to Earth.
Then the Broncos offense got into another competitive team period on their own 30-yard line. Sutton rose up on another play and grabbed a highly contested catch from Moss again.
On the next play, Nix went to drop back, but outside linebacker Nik Bonitto beat a block by Evan Engram and Garett Bolles with a speed rush. Bonitto, from my perspective, was going to do the typical run by that pass rushers do because you can’t hit the quarterback, but Malcolm Roach generated some push against the interior offensive line that forced Nix to have to take another step back in his dropback, and that led to Bonitto crashing into Nix from behind. On top of that, Roach fell forward, and an offensive lineman fell backward, sandwiching Nix on the ground.
Nix tossed a football at the feet of Roach and had some words for him. The rest of the offensive line had words as Bonitto went with a coach to the sideline to cool down. On the next play, Nix threw an interception to Alex Singleton, who began to return it upfield before RJ Harvey punched the ball out and recovered it.
Lost in the shuffle was Bonitto coming back onto the field to let the offense hear it, and that’s when things got a bit out of hand. Nix went to the pile and pulled Bonitto’s leg to get him out of the pile, which led to Bonitto and Nix having words, and tempers flared; words were said. Football.
After the period ended and sides had a chance to cool down, Nix and the defense hugged it out; he and Bonitto shook hands and squashed the tension of the period.
“I love it,” Nix said. “It’s football. It’s getting me ready for the games coming up, and it’s a physical practice out there played by physical people. It got intense, and we were just really enjoying it, and sometimes in the dog days of summer practice gets long and the intensity runs high. “
We didn’t hear from Sean Payton today because it was the coordinators’ day to speak, but Payton’s message rang clear through Vance Joseph and Davis Webb, who both echoed the sentiments that competitive intensity is what football is about, but there is always a specific line that they don’t want to cross, in a real game, or with each other as teammates.
“It’s going to happen,” Webb said. “We just can’t cross the line. Sean said that, and I agree. I’m glad we’re fiery. I love the competition out here. It’s been unbelievable to watch both sides of the ball win some plays and win some periods. But we can’t cross the line.
These players spend 12- to 13-hour days at the team facility on practice, meetings, lifting, recovery, and evening walkthroughs. Even after completing their first preseason game last Friday, having competitive and physical practices will bring the chippiness out.
Now, they’ll hear about it and see it in tonight’s meeting, address it, and move on to tomorrow’s practice.