Mark Sanchez had his best practice of camp on Tuesday. Of course, the players weren’t wearing pads and were going about half speed or so, but still, Sanchez looked good. He threw a deep touchdown to Demaryius Thomas and avoided the dumb mistakes of the past couple of days.

Monday was miserable for Sanchez, as he threw his third pick six of camp and then, in a walkthrough session, stupidly took a knee with no timeouts inside the five instead of simply grounding the ball. The defense hopped up and down as they won a period that wasn’t even competitive. This was the butt fumbleness of Sanchez that has chased him his entire career. However, he was the bigger investment in the off season and without a TON of support from his coaches, he was given the grudging first team reps on Tuesday.

Head coach Gary Kubiak had promised the dogged press corps that he would announce the starter after the Tuesday practice, but instead, said that he and the coaches would have to talk about it upstairs. This was again another slight to Sanchez, who, despite being given everything on a silver platter, is unable to have anybody truly believe in him.

Trevor Siemian is hardly perfect — he threw a deflected pass for a pick six during practice on Tuesday — but he also has been the better quarterback for the past week. He hasn’t made the dumb mistakes that Sanchez has made. While Siemian doesn’t look spectacular, he has more than enough good moments to take this thing right down to the wire.

Kubiak said that each quarterback will get a quarter and Paxton “the Pirate” Lynch will get the second half in Chicago. The fact that Kubiak and the coaches needed to see one more practice out of Sanchez to come to their final verdict proves how unsure they are about a guy who should’ve been able to earn the starting gig before camp even started.  We will truly go into the first preseason game of the year with as much intrigue as humanly possible for a completely meaningless game.

We will also see a punting competition between Riley Dixon and Britton Colquitt. For MANY reasons, the Broncos are rooting for their draft pick over the vet.  Also, Kalif Raymond will get MANY chances to prove why he should be kept rather than Jordan Norwood. Also, you will watch an offensive lineman named Darrion Weems get a ton of time while Ty Sambraillo contemplates whether he will ever be healthy to play in the NFL.

Juwan Thompson has almost no shot to make this team, but he will give it his best effort.

Anytime local guys like Eddie Yarborough (who may have a shot on practice squad) or John Tidwell get to wear their hometown colors in any form of an NFL game is a good deal.  Tidwell will need to do something spectacular, but it’s all still a dream come true.

Aqib Talib told me he couldn’t say if he shot himself. I had folks on social media scream to me about the fifth ammendment and claim I shouldn’t ask that question because I’m not a lawyer. I’m sorry. This is a pretty simple situation: Did you shoot yourself or not?

I’m guessing if you can’t say you DIDN’T shoot yourself, then you probably shot yourself.  There are so many things I can firmly say I haven’t done. Let’s see … I haven’t shot myself. I haven’t made love to anybody from Eastern Europe. I haven’t raised chickens. I haven’t benched pressed 300 pounds. I haven’t robbed a grocery store. I haven’t stolen a car. I know for a fact if anybody accused me of ANY of those things, I wouldn’t have to wait for a trial. I also know that when I DID get in trouble years ago for a radio stunt that went dreadfully wrong, I couldn’t say I didn’t promote an event that tore up private land.

Now, to be clear, I didn’t do it intentionally, because I trusted a complete idiot that this event was okay to do, but I know if somebody asked me that question, I would’ve had to say, I can’t answer your question because it is under investigation. A plea deal and 20 hours of community service later, I can answer any darn question you have about that event.

You see, ignorance of the law doesn’t make breaking the law okay. I was guilty enough. There were a ton of lies swirling around about this event that I was part of. Trust me when I heard things that were completely untrue, it ticked me off. However, it was my own stupid fault for being involved in something that I should’ve stayed FAR away from. No matter what the result is of Talib’s incident and no matter what his involvement actually was, it’s his own dumb fault for putting himself in a situation where this comes up at all. He’s not some sort of hero; he’s actually massively dumb. He endangered himself, others around him and broke the trust of his employer. He’s a good dude that everybody likes talking to, but his irresponsible behavior is embarrassing. If you truly can’t flat out deny that you did something wrong, then you most likely did something wrong.

Again, we aren’t talking about poor people that can’t afford good lawyers; we are talking about a professional athlete worth millions of dollars who has had multiple run ins with the law. However, he’s a really good cornerback, so he’s given the longest rope possible, and I have no doubt he will be cheered by fans upon his return.

Meanwhile, Kenny Annunike who has been desperately trying to rehab for two years was let go, and Ryan Murphy, who decided it was a good idea to have sex with a prostitute along with his brother during Super Bowl week, was asked to return to the team. He was needed for depth because Shiloh Keo may face suspension for a DUI that he took over the summer.

Kenny is a Duke man and about as nice of a guy as you can find, but he couldn’t get healthy in time, so he’s gone.

Sam Brenner looked like he was killed on the practice field last week. His concussion was so severe he couldn’t move from a face down position for several minutes. He had to be carted off the field and was so woozy that days later I’m not sure if he could even understand that he wasn’t allowed the time to heal to come back to the team. RIVERSIDE!

We are moving on.

This is why you need to know the name Darrion Weems: He’s gonna get a shot — for now.

NFL

Not For Long.

This isn’t to castigate or belittle the Broncos. This is simply to describe the NFL. I bet you anything that I could go into ANY NFL training camp and find stories like this. I bet you anything there are good guys who don’t get a fair shot and bad guys that get every break in the book. I bet you anything on every team there are players that are let go because they are costing the team too much money because a superstar on that team needs the MOST money possible. Wouldn’t it be something if Von Miller said he would take six less million guaranteed so that Britton Colquit could keep his job? Unlikely.

In the wild world of long snappers, Casey Kreiter looks like a keeper and hopefully we never have to mention his name again. He is replacing Aaron Brewer who didn’t have a bad snap in three years. This surge of confidence led Brewer to believe that he could act like an imbecile on the Broncos plane ride home from the Super Bowl. Many think Brewer was hopped up on some drug when he couldn’t shut up and paraded to first class to let all the coaches and John Elway know he was a certified idiot. The Broncos cut him in March

The Bears signed Aaron Brewer a week later.

Aaron Brewer replaced Lonie Paxton who made too much money.

I suppose we are all replaceable for younger, cheaper models, but most of us, despite how good we may be at our jobs, still have to maintain some sort of moral code. In the NFL, that line is shaky at best. Guns, drugs, booze and abuse — whatever.  If you can play, you can play.  And if you can play for less than the other guy, well, that’s even better.

The Broncos go into their Thursday night preseason game with many questions to answer with several players that shouldn’t be trusted to lead a boy scout meeting. But, hey, that 4th of July sausage probably tasted great; don’t go digging to deeply into how it was made.