Joe Lom­bar­di has worked for Sean Pay­ton longer than almost any­body in football.

The Bron­cos offen­sive coor­di­na­tor is in his 13th sea­son as an assis­tant in some capac­i­ty on a Pay­ton coach­ing staff.

He’s heard prob­a­bly most or all of the sto­ries. He’s seen the mag­ic at work. He’s been a part of a Super Bowl team, some much lean­er years, Payton’s year sus­pend­ed by the NFL and much more.

He’s undoubt­ed­ly been yelled at. A lot.

Maybe it’s no sur­prise, then, that he laughed off the sto­ry this week that’s car­ried on after NFL Net­work cam­eras on Sat­ur­day night caught Pay­ton ream­ing quar­ter­back Rus­sell Wil­son on the side­line after a sec­ond-half sequence in which Den­ver stalled out on the goal line.

“I think ear­ly on, (you learn) game days are like Vegas,” Lom­bar­di said Thurs­day. “What goes on on game day stays on game day. It’s an emo­tion­al time and you can’t take things per­son­al. We’ve all been on the end of that and we’ve all been Sean as well, yelling at some­body. I don’t think it’s near­ly as big a deal and we don’t take it personal.

“You laugh about it later.”

By Lombardi’s telling, Wil­son did lit­er­al­ly laugh about it.

“Russ came up yes­ter­day and said it’s his turn to yell at Sean,” Lom­bar­di said. “In this sit­u­a­tion, everyone’s got good rela­tion­ships with each oth­er and it’s just part of being in the family.”

Bonit­to still out. Bron­cos sec­ond-year out­side line­backer Nik Bonit­to didn’t prac­tice again Thurs­day as he tries to come back from an injury to the MCL in his left knee sus­tained Dec. 10.

Pay­ton on Wednes­day didn’t want to rule Bonit­to out for Sun­day night, but if he doesn’t prac­tice again Fri­day, Denver’s sack and tack­le-for-loss leader is more like­ly to return New Years Eve day against the Los Ange­les Chargers.

Tight end Greg Dul­ci­ch (hamstring/foot) also didn’t prac­tice Thurs­day, mark­ing the fourth straight prac­tice day he’s missed going back to last week. Dul­ci­ch was a full par­tic­i­pant Dec. 13 when he was des­ig­nat­ed to return from injured reserve, but now looks like a long­shot to play Sun­day night.

The rest of the Thurs­day injury report: Defen­sive line­man Mike Pur­cell (DNP) and tight end Chris Man­hertz (lim­it­ed) got vet­er­an rest days, while Sama­je Per­ine returned to a full work­load. OLB Jonathon Coop­er (ankle) and OL Alex Pal­czews­ki (knee) were full participants.

Time on task. Bron­cos rook­ie line­backer Drew Sanders has played more since mov­ing to out­side line­backer and moved up the lad­der a rung the past game-plus since Bonit­to got hurt.

If Bonit­to miss­es anoth­er game, Sanders will like­ly slot in third out­side behind Coop­er and Baron Brown­ing, the start­ing tandem.

That duo han­dled a major work­load Sat­ur­day night at Detroit. Brown­ing played 60 of Denver’s 66 defen­sive snaps (91%) and Coop­er played 56 (85%), the high­est mark of the year for both players.

That could be the case again Sun­day night, or per­haps Sanders will get more snaps.

“He’s get­ting bet­ter week­ly,” Den­ver defen­sive coor­di­na­tor Vance Joseph said of the third-round pick out of Arkansas, who start­ed off the sea­son at inside line­backer but switched to the edge about a month ago. “His tal­ent is obvi­ous, right? He just needs time on task. It’s tough for a young D’backer to come into the league and play instant­ly well, you know? There’s so much to learn, from calls and cov­er­age and run fits. He’s play­ing a lit­tle bit of inside and out­side for us. But he’s pro­gress­ing well. He’s a gift­ed play­er. He just needs time on task to work through his learn­ing curve as far as play­ing on this level.

“He’s work­ing hard every day to get better.”

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