Marvin Mims Jr. swears only lopsided numbers led to his clothes getting paint-soaked earlier this month.
The paintball battles in Texas with his Broncos teammates, he claims, were not fair fights.
“It was five vs. four,” he said. “I was on the team with four and so every time it was like 4-on-1 against me. So I got blasted. Mom wasn’t happy, she had to wash the clothes.”
The rest of the days he spent with other Denver skill position players plus quarterbacks Jarrett Stidham and Bo Nix? Very productive.
“It’s a good thing,” Mims said. “We’re up here so much with the coaches, so kind of just talking about it, understanding what we see as players — especially hearing from the quarterbacks what they see in the pass and what they think is happening. And different things we can do in and out of our routes. It can help a lot.”
Mims had the added benefit of being from Dallas, which doubles as Stidham’s offseason home. The Broncos’ most veteran quarterback organized the workouts at SMU’s campus shortly after July 4.
Now they’re all reconvened for training camp. Head coach Sean Payton said the rotating among his three quarterbacks will continue early in camp and it started in Wednesday’s acclimation practice with Stidham first up, just like the offseason program.
Part of the fifth-year quarterback’s road to winning the job is to continue on the leadership path. But, of course, he’s also got to show he’s still got room to grow on the field after seeing two starts each of the past two seasons for Denver and Las Vegas (2022).
“It’s an ongoing evaluation on decisions — how quickly the ball’s coming out,” Payton said of Stidham. “Certainly he knows what we’re doing. And then, look, I went over this last night: Do you know what to do? Are you trying to do what’s being coached? How well are you doing it? There’s a series of things that it’s important for them to understand how they’re being evaluated and that applies to him, as well.”
Ramp up. The Broncos started off with just shy of 90 minutes on the field Wednesday and are slated for about 105 on Thursday. Then fans arrive Friday for the first open training camp day of the summer. By the weekend, Payton said, Denver will be moving toward being in full pads for practice.
In the meantime, though, these “acclimation days” help start to build up football conditioning before the long slog through camp.
“I do think you have to build callous,” Payton said. “There’s a time for that. But today’s practice was one of the shorter ones and then each day there will be a gradual buildup.”
Critical kickoffs. The NFL’s overhauled kickoff rules will debut on the field in the coming weeks as teams begin preseason play.
Payton on Wednesday said he expects Denver to spend up to 20-25% more practice time on the play than it would have in previous years.
Mims, a dynamic return man both on kickoffs and punts as a rookie, is excited.
“There’s a lot of unknown things about it and we’ll see what happens in the preseason,” Mims said. “It’s been a lot of fun for us because we’re always trying to be ahead of other teams, but we’ll see a lot of good things and a lot of bad things (in the preseason).”
Jersey patches. The Broncos renewed and expanded their partnership with Children’s Hospital Colorado, the team announced Wednesday. Among the updates: Players now wear sponsored patches on their practice jerseys for Children’s Colorado on the upper left chest area.
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Originally Published: July 24, 2024 at 1:31 p.m.
