ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Between the coronavirus pandemic and protests against Black people dying at the hands of white police officers, Broncos head coach Vic Fangio has been challenged with 5 ½ months of stops and starts while trying to get his team ready for the 2020 season.
It’s a young Broncos offense that has had relatively little on-field practice and the seasons is a mere 2 ½ weeks away. Does Fangio worry there hasn’t been enough time to get his team prepared for the season opener September 14 against the Tennessee Titans at Empower Field at Mile High?
"Well, coaches innately are concerned but we all knew this was going to be an improvise and adjust training camp with everything going on," Fangio said in a Zoom media call following his team’s back-to-practice session Friday. "And yesterday was one of those days where we needed to improvise and adjust. And we did and we think we’re better off for it."
Some things are worth stopping football for. Fangio gathered his players and coaches for a special meeting Thursday morning to discuss the world social justice issues in wake of a white Kenosha policeman shooting Jacob Blake, a black civilian, seven times in the back.
After Fangio started the meeting, roughly a dozen players and coaches got up to speak, some of them twice. Fangio then cancelled the practice and the players hung around to discuss what further action they could take.
One player who addressed the team was veteran running back Melvin Gordon, who grew up in Kenosha.
"It was heartbreaking," Gordon said of the Blake incident to members of the Denver media Friday. "Seeing people from my community get shot in the street … it was sad to see. When people put it out there justifying their actions or justifying why it’s OK to shoot someone seven times in the back -- to me it’s just sad."
Kenosha is a Wisconsin city of about 100,000 located 40 miles south of Milwaukee near Lake Michigan and the Illinois border. Gordon grew up there, then went on to star at the University of Wisconsin and later the NFL Chargers before signing a two-year, $16 million contract with the Broncos in March.
"It was good," Gordon said of his hometown. "You deal with things here and there but as far as from a police standpoint I didn’t have any struggles with them. That’s why I was really sick to see that. I’ve never in all my years seen anyone go through that or heard about that.
"In our community we have a nice community. Everyone looks out after one another. But to see that, it was just disgusting. For that to be displayed around the whole world, you know, it was bad, man."
That’s the problem, though. Jacob Blake was the latest such incident that has occurred, not the only. There was the George Floyd killing in late-May, which the Broncos protested by holding a peaceful march through downtown Denver.
And then three months later came another incident of a white police officer using what many believe was excessive force on a black man – while others argue the policeman was justified.
"I feel like even yesterday when we were having the team meeting, a lot of the conversation was we can’t just say we’re going to do something and then two weeks, three weeks later another incident like this where law enforcement in the community is consistently a problem,’’ Broncos safety Justin Simmons said Friday in his Zoom media call. “Specifically, talking about the Jacob Blake case, I don’t know when in America it became OK to start looking up people’s past history for them to be condemned and say it’s OK, it was justified why he was shot 7 times in the back. That makes zero sense. …
"The fact we are putting so much on officers to make quick decisions in the heat of the moment, what is the training for? I just don’t understand why people are justifying innocent, in this case civilians are being murdered in cold blood and we’re cool with it."
Broncos podcast: Klis' Mike Drop
Denver Broncos headlines, game previews and interviews with our 9NEWS insider Mike Klis.
HOW TO LISTEN
SUGGESTED VIDEOS | Sports