Training camp is officially under way as the Denver Broncos had their first practice on Thursday in Englewood. After the practice ended a little early head coach Vance Joseph spoke privately with Eric Goodman and Les Shapiro of the Afternoon Drive on Mile High Sports AM 1340 | FM 104.7.

The quarterback competition has been so blown out of proportion this offseason that many of the other positional competitions have been overlooked. One of the competitions that has gotten more interesting recently is at running back after Devontae Booker was lost for 6-8 weeks with a broken wrist.

“Absolutely [it’s disappointing], but mostly for Booker because he’s made some great strides from his first year to his second. He had surgery on Friday and he’ll be out for six weeks. That’s actually before week one, but with conditioning and contact it’s more likely that Week 2 he’ll play,” the first-year head coach explained. “We have him for the year, though. He’ll miss the first two or three games, but we’re fine. We have four or five other guys at that spot that are competing for playing time. So as far as the Broncos go we’re in good shape.”

Some believe that due to the injury to Booker, it may speed up the timeline for seeing Jamaal Charles make a big impact in orange and blue. Joseph addressed that idea as well.

“I am not going to rush Jamaal. My goal with him is to get him enough reps so that he is ready to play on September 11 against the [Los Angeles] Chargers. I think giving Jamaal enough time to rehab, enough time to get his body strong so that he can take the pounding he will during the season – and using him right is important also. But I think if we can get Jamaal back to looking like Jamaal, that’ll be the difference for us,” Joseph said.

The positional competitions are heating up in training camp, and the injury to Devontae Booker made the running back competition that much more interesting.

Listen to the full interview, including Joseph’s thoughts on his first training camp as a head coach, in the podcast below.

Sorry – this audio content is no longer available.

Catch Afternoon Drive with Goodman and Shapiro every weekday from 4p-6p on Mile High Sports AM 1340 | FM 104.7 or stream live any time for the best local coverage of Colorado sports from Denver’s biggest sports talk lineup.