Broncos
Broncos HC Sean Payton emphasized the importance of strength and conditioning during the team’s start of the off-season training program.
“We’re probably the only team that stays in Phase One for five weeks,” Payton said, via Broncos Wire. “So, I would say the most important thing we do is lift, change our bodies, run, condition. We’ll have plenty of time for football. There’s a reason we spend five weeks and we don’t even go near [football]. I don’t want them pulling into the parking lot in April thinking they’re coming to football practice. I want them coming here knowing that they’re going to get a good workout in, good lift in. So that would be the most important thing.”
Payton said he adopted this philosophy from his mentor, former HC Bill Parcells.
“I remember, I had the quarterbacks and receivers [under Parcells],” Payton said. “First week, they’re lifting, and I got them out on the field. Now they’d been with us four days. He walks to the door outside the practice field, and he’s just looking at me. He says, ‘If one of these receivers gets a hamstring [injury], I’m going to have another quarterback/receiver coach.’ And he was right. In other words, we don’t know at that moment where they’re at from a conditioning and strength standpoint. So, I would say that was him.”
Panthers
Panthers WR Hunter Renfrow said his body feels good after taking time away from football.
“The first week or so just getting back into it, my body was still not sure about it, but I’ve felt pretty good,” Renfrow said, via the team’s website.
Renfrow is still getting back into playing shape but is happy with how his body has responded to football movements.
“Honestly, this is the best I’ve felt since probably 2021, by far,” Renfrow said. “Really, the last three years, I struggled my last two with the Raiders, and last year just struggled with fatigue, but this is by far the best I’ve felt since 2021. It’s like anything: Rome wasn’t building a day. Just taking it day by day, stacking good days and telling yourself, even though you don’t feel great, that it will get better. Just keep pushing through, putting one step in front of the other kind of mentality. And I feel like I’ve done that and every day I’ve felt better and better and better and better. I’m still not exactly 100 percent where I want to be, but I feel a lot better. I feel like my body has adjusted well to the load. Not that OTAs is an incredible amount, but I’ve been pleased. My body felt better than I thought.”
Panthers HC Dave Canales still believes that Renfrow has more left in the tank and can get back into form.
“Absolutely,” Canales replied when asked if there was hope of Renfrow getting back to his old form. “Every day, you see him shine in different ways. Outside of Adam Thielen, no one’s had more catches in the NFL than Hunter (in this group), and so to see him show up in different ways, attack a zone, attack leverage different ways on his releases, it’s so cool. Because you can coach up that stuff, but to see him be comfortable out there, he makes plays every day. So, it’s really exciting.”
Renfrow has transformed his body and diet in order to get back to feeling like he was able to compete.
“For me, it’s been knowing what I can eat and what I can get away with and still not feeling fatigued,” he said. “I’ve been cutting out sugar for the last month and a half, and I think that’s been a big thing for me. It’s been more what I’m fueling my body with in training. If I feel great, then I will go out there and train because I’m going to give everything I have while I’m out there, right? But there’s a big difference when I feel good when I don’t feel good, and lately, really, the last month, I felt pretty good. My last two years in Vegas, I feel like one day a month I felt decent, while the other 29 I felt bad. Now I feel like there’s one day a month I don’t feel good and the other 29 feel good. So it’s kind of flipped the script. It all stems from what I put in my body, how I feel it, and I’ve just been excited about how I felt.”
Steelers
According to CBS insider Aditi Kinkhabwala, the contract talks between Pittsburgh and OLB T.J. Watt were reminiscent of where the team was four years ago with him.
“Here’s what the disconnect is,” Kinkhabwala said, via Steelers Wire. “And this is what happened the last time around in these negotiations. T.J. Watt was openly told, ‘You’re fortunate to be a Steeler.’ And his response was, ‘You’re fortunate to have me.’”
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