Grant Thornham is 10 years old. He is ruined for fall baseball this season but he will have a story to tell his kids for the rest of his life.
On Saturday, young Grant was trying to catch a Brandon McManus field goal attempt up on the Dove Valley berm. Grant had a few buddies from a camp he’s attending surrounding him. He made a move for the ball amongst his comrades. He put his hand up in the air making a classic baseball mistake.
“I should’ve been using two hands like I do in baseball,” young Grant explained to me. Instead, he tried to do his best Jordan “Sunshine” Taylor impression by snatching the football out of the air with his right hand alone, when – SNAP! His dad got the bad news later in the day.
Grant’s sister is recently getting out of a cast and now Grant is going to go into one, which will basically make him a baseball benchwarmer this fall. However, on Sunday, there was a reason for Grant’s family to not sue the Broncos for irresponsible field goal kicking. Grant, clad in an orange cast got to hang around the media area and get autographs away from the maddening crowd. He got a one-on-one meeting and autorgraph from the wrist-breaker Brandon McManus and spend time explaining the tragic episode to head coach Gary Kubiak. This may have been the highlight of the day for Kubiak.
The end of practice came quicker than expected. The Broncos were going to wrap things up with some field goal kicking, punting and perhaps another drive down the field. But, the play got so sloppy, Kubiak cut things short, chewed out the squad in general while praising a few of the second- and third-year guys like Bradley Roby and Shane Ray.
Kubiak admitted they looked gassed and apparently played like it. With 10 veterans, including T.J. Ward, Chris Harris, Virgil Green, Emanual Sanders, Demaryius Thomas, Matt Paradis (veteran?), sitting out, it was a day for younger guys to step up. It didn’t happen like the coaching staff would’ve liked.
It was another day Trevor Siemian just didn’t step up like he needed to. It was a day where Mark Sanchez probably seperated himself enough to earn the starting position. In fact, it was a day where Paxton Lynch may have just passed Siemian as the No. 2 guy. What usually happens once the team returns from the first day off in camp is you more or less see what you are going to get headed into Week 1. I know that may seem ridiculously early, but that’s just how it goes.
There were a couple of scuffles between Corey Nelson and the world’s smallest offensive lineman James Ferentz. Kubiak had to pause practice just to eliminate this kind of thing. It’s one of those inevitible deals the coaches say they hate, but secretly love. However, the sloppieness wasn’t enjoyable for anybody.
A hot day at Dove Valley saw the most physical practice since the Super Bowl with the largest crowd of the year. They saw fights and a star being born in number 19 Kalif Raymond. The crowd got hyped and then hushed into silence with a very scary injury to offensive lineman Sam Brenner who layed motionless face down for several minutes before being carted off. Kubiak said Brenner was going to be evaluated for a concussion. He was obviously knocked out cold. The crowd got all the thrills and spills of real football. It is breathtaking and terrifying all at the same moment.
The big takeaway is that you always need to be careful on the field and off the field in what was the most brutal practice of camp where even 10-year-olds risk getting put on IR.
Featured Image Credit: @dmac1043
