Denver Broncos safety Kareem Jackson (22) during training camp at UCHealth Training Center August 28, 2020.
As the Broncos gear up for their Sept. 14 season opener against Tennessee on Monday Night Football, two particular players have been keeping things light with ample trash talk in practice.
Safety Kareem Jackson hasn’t stopped jawing since the first day of camp, routinely razzing wideouts any time they drop a ball, celebrating profusely after interceptions and making sure the offense knows about each and every pass break-up. He’s taken up the role as the secondary’s loud mouthpiece, as Chris Harris Jr. and Aqib Talib were before him.
On the offensive side, star wideout Courtland Sutton has been jawing right back. After some of his many touchdown catches in practice, he has let the defensive sideline know about it. On others, he’ll simply spin the caught ball on the grass and let that do the trash-talking for him as he casually jogs away.
In the end, Sutton believes the back-and forth is “fun.”
“When you have some friendly competition going on between the offense and the defense, I think it ramps up the (energy) at practice, the competition,” Sutton said. “Guys are really getting after it because we want to talk smack to them, they want to talk smack back to us. It gives practice that juice that we need to make sure that everybody’s going as hard as they can to put forth their best effort.”
And coach Vic Fangio doesn’t mind the banter, either, so long as it “doesn’t get over the top to where it could be instigating a fight.” There’s been a couple post-play confrontations so far this preseason, but there hasn’t been a major fight.
“There’s nothing wrong with a little trash-talking during practice,” Fangio said. “When I was a defensive coordinator, I was a pretty good trash talker too. As the head coach, I have to tone it down a little bit.”
— Kyle Newman, The Denver Post
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