For the veterans, training camp begins Friday, July 31, but for 22 Denver Broncos rookies, training camp has already started. Rookies can, and are often required to, report to training camp early to get in extra work.
Three of the Broncos’ highest-profile rookies, offensive tackle Ty Sambrailo, nose tackle Darius Kilgo, and linebacker Shane Ray, sat down with the media Monday – their first day at training camp – to discuss the differences between college football and the NFL, getting advice from veterans, and the level of excitement around camp.
Here are the highlights…
Kilgo: “I’d probably just have to say the speed of the game, just the demand of learning the playbook and being able to go out there and make the least amount of mistakes as possible. You don’t want to make the same mistake twice. You definitely want to know your playbook, and when you get on the practice field, you want to be able to produce.”
Ray: “For me, it’s football. It’s what I’ve been doing my whole life, so nothing really changes. As long as you work hard and work for what you want to do, I feel like you can be successful at whatever you want. That’s kind of my motto and it’s how I live.”
Sambrailo: “I’m just taking this whole thing one day at a time. I don’t think I can look ahead right now and say, ‘This is going to be the best season anyone’s ever seen,’ or anything like that. I’m just going to kind of take it one step at a time. I always try to be the greatest I can be and I’m going to go out and do that.”
Ray: “Now that I’m a full-go and I don’t have any issues with my foot, it’s back to what I was doing in college: having fun, rushing the passer and even dropping into coverage. It’s all of those things. I’m excited.”
Sambrailo:“Yeah, this is a very similar scheme to what I ran in college, as well, so the transition’s been pretty smooth. [There are] a lot of the same schemes, just different verbiage. It’s been a pretty easy, quick transition mentally.”
Kilgo: “It’s been a while. From graduating college to playing in a bowl game, it’s been a while since I put on the pads. I’m pretty excited.”
Ray: “I’m very eager. I think that sometimes people forget that I was SEC Defensive Player of the Year because of where I fell in the draft and my situation. For me to come out and remind everybody of what I’m still capable of doing is very important to me.”
Sambrailo: “This is my first training camp in the National Football League, so like I said, I’m taking it one day at a time. I think with any level of football camaraderie kind of builds through the grind of camp. I’m looking forward to gaining that with my teammates.”
Ray: “Von helps me a lot in coverage and DeMarcus helps me a lot with my hands and pass-rush. They’re two different players and two different athletes, so I take little pieces from each one of them and apply them to myself.”
Sambrailo: “I think both are obviously great players and they’re great teachers as well. They’ve helped me kind of correct some mistakes and kind of go through their thought process on why they do what they do, when they key stuff or they see areas and try to take advantage—just stuff I can work on like that. It helps to talk to a couple good guys like that… I’ve been out here for about three weeks now and kind of ready for camp to get started.”
Bryce Rudnick, a Mile High Sports intern and CU-Boulder student, contributed to this report
