Money drives summer rite of training camp holdouts
Fort trained under the Broncos’ strength and conditioning coach for three months. When NFL scouts descended on Laramie, Fort showed out.
His times in the 40-yard dash (4.56 seconds) and three-cone drill (6.8) would have ranked inside the top three among tight ends invited to the NFL Scouting Combine. Fort put up similar numbers for Denver scouts at their local pro day, and within an hour of the NFL draft closing, he signed a free-agent contract with the Broncos.
“You could see in there the talent (Fort) was and how athletic he was,” said rookie Juwann Winfree, who trained pre-draft alongside Fort under Landow. “He’s hungry and he wants it. He didn’t get that big opportunity in college that he probably would have liked. This is his opportunity now and he’s making the most of it.”
Fort provides an offensive skill set not so different from Butt, a 2017 fifth-round pick, with a combination of speed, sure hands and explosive run-aftercatch. Fort’s surest path to the roster, however, will be on special teams, where he must address the biggest transition between quarterback and tight end: Physicality. Fort continues to sharpen the blocking skills required at his position.
“There are going to be opportunities for me to get some one-onone matchups and do some things in the passing game,” Fort said. “That will be favorable for me, but at the same time, we’re using our tight ends in every way. I’m in the backfield, I’m split out and I’m inline blocking. I’ve just got to be good at all that stuff.”
Fort now views his quarterback background as an advantage on the path to his NFL dream. But no matter the position, just one thing will guarantee a roster spot in Denver. Fort has taken Fangio’s challenge to heart.
“It’s one thing to do it in practice, but you’ve got to be able to do it on Sundays,” Fort said. “It’s a little bit different of a ball game when you put the pads on and you get under the lights. I’ve got to grind it out so I can play well in those opportunities.”
Teammates shrug and go about their work.
Coaches say they can deal only with the players on hand.
Fans worry that this summer rite in the NFL, training camp holdouts, won’t hurt their team’s chances for a championship.
This year’s crop of no-shows includes an All-Pro receiver, the Saints’ Michael Thomas ; a versatile and rugged running back, the Cowboys’ Ezekiel Elliott; a standout offensive tackle who might be the key to the Redskins’ offense, Trent Williams; and budding stars: defensive ends Jadeveon Clowney of the Texans and Yannick Ngakoue of the Jaguars, and running back Melvin Gordon of the Chargers.
Elliott was not on the Cowboys’ charter plane to training camp in California, and Friday team owner Jerry Jones confirmed that his star back was “late.” How late Elliott might wind up being is mere projection, but he has proved to be an irreplaceable part in Dallas.
He is due to make $3.9 million in the fourth year of his rookie contract and $9.1 million in the final year, which is a team option. The fourth overall pick from the 2016 draft has won two rushing titles in his three seasons.
“Everybody is under contract,” Jones said. “It’s a part of what goes on in football. Football is business. It’s pro football, you know where you are on every contract. Every contract we have an agreement.”
The common denominator in all of this is, naturally, money.
The common approach is for teams to publicly say nothing but nice things about the missing-inaction players while taking a hard line in negotiations. Such as:
“I can tell you unequivocally that we want Jadeveon Clowney here,” Houston coach Bill O’Brien said. “He’s a part of this team. We want him here. There’s always a difference when you’re talking about money relative to wanting him on the team. That’s something that the agent and our organization are working on, but ... we would love to have him here. He’s a really talented football player that’s made a lot of good plays for us in the past.”