Player attendance

Did not prac­tice: Tight end Austin Fort (knee, fifth con­sec­u­tive missed prac­tice). OLB Bradley Chubb (rest), TE Nick Van­nett (con­cus­sion pro­to­col), TE Noah Fant (ill­ness) and CB Davon­tae Har­ris (knee con­tu­sion) all missed their first prac­tice of camp.

Coach Vic Fan­gio said Van­nett will be “out the next few days.”

Of Chubb, com­ing off last September’s torn ACL, Fan­gio said: “Bradley was ready to go today and could have prac­ticed, but I just decid­ed to give him the day off.”

Top play

In 11-on-11 work, QB Jeff Driskel’s pass over the mid­dle intend­ed for WR KJ Ham­ler deflect­ed straight up in the air, pro­duc­ing a car crash of play­ers. DE Dre’Mont Jones had the first shot, but couldn’t cor­ral it. ILB Josey Jew­ell came up with the interception.

Thumbs-up

TE Albert Okwueg­bunam. He took advan­tage of Nick Van­nett and Noah Fant not prac­tic­ing to make sev­er­al fine catch­es. His ath­let­ic abil­i­ty as a route-run­ner and abil­i­ty to snatch the foot­ball out of the air is impressive.

The rook­ies. From an untrained eye, the Bron­cos’ new­bies have kept their men­tal mis­takes to a min­i­mum. “I think our coach­es did a good job with the vir­tu­al stuff we had in the off­sea­son, they did a good job when we had (the rook­ies) in there for the extra 4–5 days and I think these guys have engaged them­selves into the learn­ing,” Coach Fan­gio said.

Odds and ends

• The Bron­cos prac­ticed in shells Wednes­day (67 plays of 11-on-11) after wear­ing full pads Monday-Tuesday.
• Coach Vic Fan­gio on the abbre­vi­at­ed train­ing camp: “I have to keep remind­ing myself that I think we have only 13–14 prac­tices left before we’re in Game Week for Ten­nessee. Many times, when I’m mak­ing the script or installing, I get the feel­ing (because) we’ve only prac­ticed 3–4 days, you think you can go slow­er. But I have to remind myself what’s left and what’s com­ing up so we have to find that fine bal­ance every day.”
• First peri­od of 11-on-11: QB Jeff Driskel over­shot TE Albert Okwueg­bunam on a down­field route after Okwueg­bunam got a step on S Trey Mar­shall. On a Brett Ryp­i­en screen pass to RB Royce Free­man, ILB Joe Jones made the stop after beat­ing OL Tyler Jones.
• Sec­ond peri­od of 11-on-11: QB Drew Lock’s top throw of prac­tice was to WR Court­land Sut­ton on a deep route after Sut­ton may or may not have got­ten away with push­ing off of CB Bryce Calla­han. Lat­er in the seg­ment, Lock con­nect­ed with TE Troy Fuma­gal­li in the end zone (nice job of keep­ing both feet in-bounds) and on the next play, CB A.J. Bouye per­fect­ly defend­ed Sut­ton on Lock’s back shoul­der throw to the end zone. Driskel com­plet­ed four con­sec­u­tive pass­es before he was inter­cept­ed by ILB Josey Jew­ell. Ryp­i­en com­plet­ed all four of his passes.
• Third peri­od of 11-on-11: Lock was first up and had com­ple­tions to WR Tim Patrick and TE Jake Butt and had pass­es bro­ken up by CB Isaac Yiadom and Calla­han. Dur­ing his sec­ond series, Lock had to scram­ble when OLB Von Miller dust­ed RT Jake Rodgers, and on the next play, a mass of traf­fic at the goal line result­ed in a Bouye inter­cep­tion. Driskel ran a hur­ry-up drill and com­plet­ed four con­sec­u­tive pass­es. Rypien’s final pass was a catch-and-run touch­down by WR Tyrie Cleveland.
• High­lights from 7‑on‑7 for Lock: He began against the first-team defense with com­ple­tions to Sut­ton (long “out” route) and a check-down to RB Melvin Gor­don before pass break-ups by Calla­han (maybe a Sut­ton drop) and Bouye. In the red zone, Lock threw a touch­down to Gor­don, fol­lowed by an end zone drop by Butt, a throw­away and a short pass to WR Jer­ry Jeudy.
• High­lights from 7‑on‑7 for Driskel and Ryp­i­en: Jew­ell broke up one of Driskel’s pass­es. Rypien’s first pass was bro­ken up by CB Duke Daw­son and his final pass was a drop by WR Trin­i­ty Ben­son in the end zone. Fol­low­ing Benson’s drop, S Kareem Jack­son, ing from the side­lines, yelled, “You got­ta catch that!” Lat­er, WR Kendall Hin­ton and Okwueg­bunam had touch­down catches.
• Prac­tice end­ed with a hur­ry-up drill — com­plete the pass, receiv­er goes to the turf on his own, quar­ter­back spikes the foot­ball and then runs a third play.
• The spe­cial teams ran their “fire drill” when the kick­ing team runs out on the field with­out a time­out to attempt a field goal.
• Rook­ie C Lloyd Cushen­ber­ry saw his ini­tial first-team offense work, although Austin Schlottmann took the major­i­ty of the reps. Of Cushen­ber­ry, Fan­gio said: “I think Cushenberry’s doing fine. One thing he has going for him that a lot of rook­ies don’t have going for them is that he is smart and pick­ing things up very.”
• The Bron­cos will head down­town to prac­tice at Mile High on Aug. 29, but it will not be open to fans. Before camps start­ed, the NFL office encour­aged teams to prac­tice at least once at their home sta­di­um to have a logis­ti­cal run-through of sorts for the reg­u­lar season.

Thursday’s schedule

Prac­tice.

Staff writer Kyle New­man con­tributed to this report.