A Denver Broncos practice altercation broke out on Day 13 of training camp after Bo Nix was taken to the ground. The dust-up came a few players later, turning an ordinary Tuesday practice into the kind of session that leaves everyone talking well after the whistles stop.
No one was hurt, including Nix, who is returning from a broken ankle and said the contact did not bother him. He sounded almost pleased by the edge in the session. “I love it,” he said. “It’s football.”
The quarterbacks are supposed to be off limits in practice, and Vance Joseph said that again after the session. “Bo's our quarterback, and we don't want anyone near Bo,” he said. That is the rule on paper, but the field told a messier story, with a fight breaking out soon after Nix was taken down and the pace of the day spilling past the line Joseph wants his defense to hold.
Nix did not sound like a player asking for a softer version of camp. “It’s getting me ready for the games coming up,” he said. “It’s a physical practice out there, played by physical people.” He added that “it got intense and we were just really enjoying it,” then described the stretch of camp as the point when “practice gets long, and the intensity runs high.”
The altercation also fit a practice that had already been chippy in other spots. Rookie linebacker Taurean York de-cleated Justin Joly after Joly caught a pass, and Joly later dropped a deep ball from Sam Ehlinger as he went to the ground. That kind of contact may be tolerated in the broader rhythm of training camp, but it becomes harder to ignore when the quarterback is the one getting flattened first.
That matters even more because Nix is coming back from a broken ankle, which makes every hit around him more sensitive than it would be in a midseason practice. Joseph does not have much room to let the line blur, especially with a preseason game coming Friday and another practice scheduled before then. The Broncos have enough competition for jobs without adding unnecessary contact to the mix.
There were other absences and moving parts around the field, too. Alex Forsyth, Drew Sanders and Michael Bandy remained sidelined, Caleb Lohner was out with a knee injury, Levelle Bailey remained out with a broken leg and Nick Gargiulo stayed on the PUP list. Luke Wattenberg and Marvin Mims worked through the walk-through before later moving to a side field, while Sean Payton said on Monday it was too soon to know whether Bailey could return later this season.
For now, the clearest takeaway is that the Broncos are testing the edge of camp against the need to protect their quarterback. Nix welcomed the heat. Joseph wants it controlled. The next practice will show whether the message landed before Friday does.
