This quiz is for you Chris Harris Jr.
With the Broncos' star cornerback skipping the team's offseason program, 9News devotes this entire quiz to Bronco holdouts over the years, whether they were unofficial holdouts from the offseason workouts, or officially by missing portions of mandatory minicamps or training camps.
It’s a little easier than past quizzes, so you must correctly answer 5.5 of the 9 questions to call yourself a diehard Broncos fan.
QUESTIONS
1. Contract haggling caused this rookie player to miss the first two days and three practices of the Broncos’ “soft opening” training camp in 2010 that was for rookies and quarterbacks.
2. This player is still kicking seven years after he skipped the Broncos’ 2012 offseason workouts in protest of his one-year, $2.654 million franchise tag.
3. This player essentially killed his career by holding out from the Broncos’ offseason workout program and training camp in 2006 before he was traded prior to the team’s third preseason game.
4. After gaining just 451 yards combined in his first three seasons with the Los Angeles Rams, this running back replaced Broncos’ holdout Bobby Humphrey and rushed for 1,037 yards in 1991 to make the Pro Bowl.
5. In a moment of negotiating pique, Broncos star Von Miller cropped out general manager John Elway from his Instagram photo taken from a summer 2016 White House visit.
Besides Elway and Miller, three other Broncos posed in the photo. One was DeMarcus Ware. Name the other two (half point for each).
6. Broncos defensive coordinator Wade Phillips criticized this player not because of his 51-day holdout in 1990, but for showing up out of shape two days before the start of the season.
A. Alphonso Carreker
B. Andre Townsend
C. Ron Holmes
D. Warren Powers
7. The Broncos had 9 players – count ‘em, 9 – hold out from the start of their 1992 training camp in Greeley.
One was first-round draft pick Tommy Maddox. The other eight were veterans who didn’t have contracts in what was the year before NFL free agency as we know it began in 1993.
Name two of the eight veteran holdouts who were later elected into the Broncos’ Ring of Fame.
8. In one of the most misguided unofficial holdouts, this aging Broncos running back skipped the team’s 10 organized team activity (OTA) practices in the spring of 2013, even though the team had just added rookies Ronnie Hillman and C.J. Anderson to a group that already included former first-round draft pick Knowshon Moreno and second-round pick Montee Ball.
This veteran running back did show up for the team’s mandatory minicamp on June 12, 2013 but was released two days later.
9. This mercurial Broncos star became an official contract holdout when he missed not only the three weeks of OTAs but the mandatory three-practice minicamp in June 2009, the first year the Broncos were led by Josh McDaniels.
To avoid hefty fines, this player showed up for training camp, but when McDaniels let it be known the team would not renegotiate his contract, this player was caught on camera petulantly punting a football away after a drill.
ANSWERS
1. Tim Tebow
That’s right, for a couple days in 2010, football’s most marketable, All American boy was just another show-me-the-money athlete in America.
A first-round rookie that year, Tebow did sign a five-year, $11.25 million contract before the full-squad start of training camp so he was not officially a holdout.
Still, as coach Josh McDaniels said following one pre-training camp practice that Tebow missed: "We went through 60 pages this morning in an installation meeting, and those pages are filled with information.’’
2. Matt Prater
He returned in time for the 2012 training camp after signing a four-year $13 million contract that made him the NFL’s fifth highest-paid kicker.
Prater was the NFL’s top kicker a year later in 2013 when he made 75 of 75 extra points and 25 of 26 field goals, including a league-record 64-yard make against Tennessee. His 64-yard field goal remains the NFL record going on six years later.
Prater, though, was released after serving a four-game suspension to start the 2014 season for violating the league’s substance abuse policy. Upon Prater’s return, the Broncos wanted to keep the strong-legged Brandon McManus.
Prater caught on quickly with the Detroit Lions where he has been so successful he is playing on his second contract extension that averages $3.8 million a year. Prater will turn 35 in August and currently ranks 39th in all-time scoring with 1,240 points.
3. Ashley Lelie
After leading the NFL in yards-per-catch in back-to-back seasons of 2004-05, Lelie, the Broncos’ first-round draft pick in 2002, held out in the final year of his contract that was to pay him $800,000.
His holdout ended when head coach Mike Shanahan traded his No. 2 receiver to Atlanta in late-August 2006, in exchange for draft picks. Lelie wound up playing just three more seasons with three teams. He averaged just 16 catches for 247 yards and one TD in those final three years.
To top off his regrettable holdout, an NFL arbiter ruled Lelie had to repay $600,000 of his first-round signing bonus back to the Broncos for violating his contract.
4. Gaston Green
Humphrey rushed for 1,151 yards and 7 touchdowns and 1,202 yards and 7 touchdowns in his first two NFL seasons of 1989-90 with the Broncos.
His holdout prior to the 1991 season was ill-fated against the uncompromising Dan Reeves and Pat Bowlen and by the time Humphrey returned late in the season, he stood on the sidelines and watched Green finish off his terrific year.
Humphrey would finish with just 33 yards with the Broncos in 1991 and 471 the next season with the Dolphins to finish his career.
Green fell off to 648 rushing yards in 1992 and was traded the next offseason to the Los Angeles Raiders, where he never played and never got another NFL carry.
5. Peyton Manning and Gary Kubiak
The famous photo from left to right was Kubiak, head coach of the Broncos’ Super Bowl 50 title team; Ware, a pass-rushing outside linebacker; Miller, the Super Bowl 50 MVP; Manning, in his final appearance as a Bronco after retiring three months earlier; and, depending on which version Von displayed, Elway or not Elway.
Miller wound up signing a six-year, $114.5 million contract in mid-July that made him the NFL’s highest-paid defensive player with an average of $19.083 million per year. (Miller is now the 5th highest paid among NFL’s defensive players, behind Khalil Mack, Aaron Donald, DeMarcus Lawrence and Frank Clark).
6. C) Ron Holmes
The defensive end signed a two-year, $1.4 million contract two days before the start of the 1990 season. Holmes had just 1.0 sack through his first 12 games before adding two more in the final two games. By then it was too late in the Broncos’ 5-11 season.
"Not coming to training camp isn't a problem," Phillips said in his weekly press conference near season’s end. "I mean, that's a contract thing, and I can understand that part. But not being ready to play, I can't understand that."
7. Simon Fletcher and Shannon Sharpe
The 1992 training camp began July 19 and both ended their holdouts by month’s end.
Fletcher finished as the Broncos’ all-time sack leader in 1995 with 97.5 – a record that held 23 years until Von Miller got his 98th sack in Denver’s 14th game last year.
Sharpe finished as the team’s all-time leader in receptions (675) and receiving touchdowns (55), and was second to Rod Smith in receiving yards (8,439) when he retired after the 2003 season. Sharpe is also in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The other six Bronco veteran holdouts prior to 1992: Defensive ends Ron Holmes and Warren Powers, offensive guard Doug Widell, offensive tackles Jeff Davidson and Harvey Salem and Pro Bowl running back Gaston Green.
That’s right, Holmes held out for the second time in three years. Holmes and Powers were the last two players to end their holdouts. Holmes lost his starting job to Kenny Walker and played in only eight games, none as a starter, in 1992, his final NFL season.
Powers was waived before playing in a game for the Broncos. He played in seven games for the Rams, none as a starter, in 1992, his final NFL season.
8. Willis McGahee
After rushing for 1,199 yards in the Tebow Season of 2011, McGahee was on his way to a second consecutive 1,000-yard season in 2012 when he suffered a leg fracture and torn MCL in game 10 that ended his season with 741 yards.
After his OTA absence and release in 2013, McGahee caught on with the Cleveland Browns but had just 377 yards rushing in 12 games in what was his final season. Moreno and Anderson, meanwhile, both went on to have 1,000-yard rushing seasons with the Broncos.
9. Brandon Marshall
After recording 102 and 104 catches and 1,325 and 1,265 yards in his previous two seasons of 2007-08, Marshall reached escalators that upped his 2009 salary to $2.198 million.
Still, he wanted long-term security and after he was snubbed by McDaniels and Bowlen, Marshall came through with another 101 catches for 1,120 yards in 2009 – even though he was suspended from the final game by McDaniels for conduct detrimental to the team.
A restricted free agent after the 2009 season, Marshall was traded to the Miami Dolphins and wound up with five more 1,000-yard-plus seasons with three teams, although he never played in a playoff game.
He is 16th all-time with 970 career receptions and after getting released by multiple teams the past two seasons, it appears his playing time is finished.
