Broncos wide receiver Jaylen Waddle returned to practice on Monday.
Waddle left practice early on Aug. 5 with a muscle strain in his left leg. He had not practiced since.
“We’re being smart with it, and he’s coming along really well. So we’ll see how this week unfolds,” coach Sean Payton said Monday, via a transcript from the team.
Center Alex Forsyth also returned to practice from an undisclosed injury that had kept him sidelined.
Wide receiver Marvin Mims worked on the side field during team drills. He left the Aug. 7 practice with a lower-body injury.
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The weather in Denver is clear and sunny today, but weekend storms will continue to affect Broncos training camp.
The Broncos announced this morning that fans will not be able to attend today’s practice because the storms damaged the fan seating areas.
“Due to damage from this weekend’s storms, the bleachers for fans are unsafe and today’s #BroncosCamp practice is now CLOSED to the public,” the team posted on social media.
Denver experienced flash flooding, heavy hail and damage to structures throughout the region over the weekend.
Broncos coach Sean Payton has a history with Atlanta, dating back to the intense rivalry between the Saints (whom he coached from 2006 through 2021) and the Falcons. Payton’s current team was back in Georgia tonight for a preseason game.
And Payton couldn’t resist making a crack about the crowd in Atlanta, or the lack of one.
“There’s a lot of people dressed up as empty seats today,” Payton said at a halftime interview, via Awful Announcing.
The official game book for the Broncos-Falcons contest lists attendance at 68,183. That may have been the tickets sold, not the tickets used.
Whether the seats will be filled during the Falcons’ regular-season home games depends on whether the team performs better than it did on Friday night. Preseason or not, the Falcons trailed 24-0 at the half. The final score was 27-7.
The Falcons have reason for optimism. They finished in a three-way tie for the NFC South crown. If they can get something/anything out of the quarterback position, they could win the division in 2026.
They’ll need to win early in the season to get the fans on board. Three of the first four games are on the road, and three of the first four teams they play made it to the playoffs in 2025.
Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa made his preseason debut with the Falcons on Friday night against the Broncos.
In two drives led by Tua, the Falcons punted twice.
The first was a three-and-out effort, netting four yards. The second saw the Falcons gain a first down and advance from their own 15 to their own 32 before punting again.
Before exiting for Cooper Rush, Tua completed three of five passes for 22 yards and a passer rating of 70.4. He also fumbled a shotgun snap before falling on it.
Tagovailoa is currently listed as the first-string quarterback. Michael Penix Jr. doesn’t have a formal spot on the depth chart, as he recovers from a torn ACL suffered last season. Penix has yet to be cleared for team activities.
The Falcons open the regular season with a September 13 visit to the Steelers. Last year, a Dolphins loss in Week 15 at Pittsburgh triggered Tua’s benching by the Dolphins — setting the stage for his offseason exit and the Dolphins paying him more than $50 million to play for the Falcons.
The Broncos have placed center Mike Deiter on season-ending injured reserve, Mike Klis of 9News reports.
Deiter, who joins defensive lineman Matt Henningsen (Achilles) on IR, injured his quad on Tuesday.
Deiter’s injury left Calvin Throckmorton and undrafted rookie Gavin Ortega at center with Luke Wattenberg and Alex Forsyth sidelined with injuries.
The Broncos signed center Lecitus Smith to take Deiter’s roster spot, per Klis.
Smith, 28, entered the NFL as a sixth-round pick of the Cardinals in 2022. He has also spent time with the Texans, Eagles, Packers, Patriots and Steelers.
He has appeared in 19 games, with four starts, including one start with the Packers last season in his only action of 2025.
The Broncos will play their starters 10-15 snaps in Friday night’s preseason opener against the Falcons. Those starters will not include quarterback Bo Nix.
The game is on the artificial turf at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and Nix is returning from a fractured right ankle.
Nix will play in the second and third preseason games, coach Sean Payton said Wednesday.
“If we were playing a game — you guys have watched practice — he would [play],” Payton said, via video from Romi Bean of CBS News Colorado. “He wanted to play. He’ll play the next two weeks.
“I think that was probably something that was already decided maybe like a month ago. But if we were playing a game, I would say he would play. You’d have to ask him, but I would say [he’d be] 100 percent.”
Nix was injured in the Broncos’ divisional-round playoff victory over the Bills, and the AFC Championship Game was the first game he has missed for injury in his career.
With Nix watching from the sideline, Jarrett Stidham and Sam Ehlinger will handle the quarterback duties against the Falcons as they compete for the backup job.
After practicing briefly with the Lions in training camp, quarterback Teddy Bridgewater decided that it’s time to retire. Bridgewater had an NFL career that spanned more than a decade with eight different teams, but it was one five-week stretch that two of his coaches recalled most when asked about his retirement this week.
In 2019, Bridgewater was the backup quarterback with the Saints, and when Drew Brees missed five games, Bridgewater stepped in and led the Saints to a 5-0 record. At the time of Brees’ injury, the Saints were 1-1 and had just been blown out by the division rival Rams, and the season could have rapidly gone downhill. But Bridgewater made sure that didn’t happen.
Lions head coach Dan Campbell, who was assistant head coach on that Saints team, said one of the reasons he wanted Bridgewater as his backup quarterback in Detroit was that he knew how dependable Bridgewater could be in a pinch.
“I’ll never forget in 2019, when Drew got injured, we had just gone out to the Rams, got beat out there, Drew hurt his thumb and was out five weeks. Teddy stepped in and we won five in a row. That was Teddy,” Campbell said.
Broncos head coach Sean Payton, who was the Saints’ head coach at the time. reflected on how much Bridgewater meant to that Saints team.
“Our experience, my experience was fantastic,” Payton said. “We made a trade for him . . . He was a great asset. A really, really good teammate. He had some rare leadership skills. . . . He was important, he was on our team during a ton of wins. When Drew got hurt he went 5-0, and I think he’ll find his way back into coaching or some role with football. I’m proud of him, and the type of injury he had was significant, young in his career.”
A devastating knee injury during a preseason practice with the Vikings in 2016 changed the trajectory of Bridgewater’s career, and he never became the franchise quarterback he was expected to be in Minnesota, or anywhere else. But no one doubted his hard work, leadership and character, and he had all the traits that coaches love in a backup quarterback. Those coaches are expressing their appreciation for Bridgewater as he walks away from the NFL.
The Denver Broncos hope to build a new stadium by 2031. The project will entail many decisions.
One fairly important decision, from the perspective of the folks who attend the games, has yet to be considered.
PSLs. Personal Seat Licenses. The money-for-nothing charge that attaches to the ability to buy season tickets.
During a Tuesday press conference with reporters, owner and CEO Greg Penner addressed the PSL issue.
“Really, it’s the furthest thing from our minds right now,” Penner said. “We’re so focused on — we’ve had so many steps before that. . . . [Burnam Yards is] still a preferred site but it’s not finalized that we’re going to be in that location. Obviously, that’s where we really want to be.
“So really, we haven’t even gotten to PSLs yet. Our season ticket holders are vital to our organization and we’re going to keep them informed every step of the way once we get there.”
Plenty of teams use PSLs, which can become very expensive based on the quality of the seats. And, frankly, it’s more fair to fund the construction of a new stadium through the PSL process than to impose on taxpayers generally, since most of them will never attend a game and many of them don’t care about football.
That may sound sacrilegious to hard-core football fans, but it’s true.
Broncos coach Sean Payton wants to see what he can do to keep his team healthier.
Payton said at training camp on Monday that he’s concerned about the number of soft-tissue injuries his team has suffered so far in camp.
“We’ve got to get a handle on some of the soft-tissues,” Payton said, via the Denver Post. “We’ve had a couple either strains, hamstring or groins. We continue to fight through that.”
Payton said he doesn’t want to blame the heat but does want to look at how the team can make sure the players are adequately taken care of, and taking care of themselves, before and during practice.
“You always try to look at your pre-practice routine,” Payton said. “Your hydration, obviously. And it’s incumbent on the player. It’s hard for anyone to know your soft tissue. I’m always looking at maybe what we did leading up to the period when a guy had a strain.”
The players who have had to miss time in training camp because of soft-tissue injuries include three of the Broncos’ most important offensive playmakers, running back J.K. Dobbins and wide receivers Jaylen Waddle and Marvin Mims Jr.
Sean Payton said the Broncos will play some starters against the Falcons on Friday night. He has not decided whether Bo Nix will be one of those to see action in the team’s preseason opener.
“We haven’t gone through the role yet,” Payton said, via Chris Tomasson of The Denver Gazette. “I’ll let you know when we go through the roles.”
The game is on the artificial turf at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which could keep Nix out until the second week of the preseason. Nix is ready, though.
He has not played since the Broncos’ divisional-round playoff victory over the Bills when he fractured his right ankle. The AFC Championship Game was the first game Nix has missed for injury in his career.
“I’m excited,” Nix said of playing in the preseason. “I think preseason’s always a great time to get back out there and get your feet wet a little bit and see defenses in a live situation before the first [regular-season] game.”
Nix said he has “no idea” whether he will play Friday.
Regardless, the Broncos are expected to use both Jarrett Stidham and Sam Ehlinger against the Falcons as they compete for the backup job.
