Broncos Insider: One Big Thing Courtland Sutton Says He Will Improve in 2019 by Kyle Frederickson Denver Post April 15, 2019
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Broncos Insider: One big thing Courtland Sutton says he will improve in 2019 By Kyle Frederickson Denver Post April 15, 2019 The smile never really leaves Courtland Sutton’s face when he talks. Whether he’s answering questions for reporters at the podium or barking support on the Broncos’ sideline, Sutton enters his sophomore NFL season with an infectious bounce. Something new quarterback Joe Flacco is beginning to learn in the voluntary offseason program. Sutton said: “I actually walked up to (Flacco) and he was like, ‘You have so much energy.’ I was like, ‘Get used to it.’ I get excited waking up in the morning. Being able to come here and this be my job and getting to be an organization like this, it’s an exciting thing for me. I told him, ‘Get used to it because you’re going to get a lot of it.’” But Year 2 also calls for self-reflection. Sutton caught 42 passes for 704 yards and four touchdowns as a rookie. More is expected of a No. 1 wide receiver. What’s the first step toward progress? Let Sutton explain. “One thing I really wanted to work on leaving out of the season was getting my speed to a different spot, being able to be explosive after the ball gets in my hand,” Sutton said. “Not just be a guy that is a possession-catch guy. … That came footwork and ball skills. There were some plays I felt I should have made, but I knew what I needed to work on. I went into the offseason working on those things. I’m going to continue to work on them. I have a long offseason and a long summer, and then I’ll hit training camp full speed.” Dalton Risner has the angels, and the wind, at his back as NFL draft looms By Sean Keeler Denver Post April 15, 2019 The Google map of a man starts mid-bicep on the right arm and winds gently north, by means of a family tree whose branches stretch and crackle like black lightning to the cusp of the shoulder. Some football players wear their hearts on their sleeves. Dalton Risner wears his soul. “I make sure I get meaningful tattoos,” explains Risner, the Wiggins native, former Kansas State All- American offensive lineman and likely the first Colorado native to get plucked in the NFL Draft later this month. “They’re going to be tattoos I still love when I’m 80.” For an open book and a free spirit, Risner is particular when it comes to his arms. They’re his living and his canvas, his trade and testament. Every image has a point and purpose, every inch a sacred, busy ground: Risner’s guns measured 34 inches long at the scouting combine, generally in the ballpark of what most NFL war rooms like to see in tackles at the next level. He’s only the fourth lineman in the history of the Big 12 to ever be named to the league’s all-first team three different times, a 312-pound farm kid, a gregarious mess of beautiful contradictions. A terror between the hashmarks who at the Senior Bowl reportedly whupped Boston College defensive end Zach Allen during workouts to the point where the two came to blows. A teddy bear who last month walked into a room of nearly 90 Special Olympians and greeted each one by their first names on sight, and later held an autograph session that cultivated more than $1,000 for their cause. “That night, he brought me (the money) that he raised and I was just like, ‘You’re just so cool,’” gushes Kim Schnee, director of the Manhattan (Kan.) Special Olympics. “And then I said, ‘I’m not stalking you or anything, but can I get your address?’ And he kind of looked at me weird. I said, ‘Because I need to send you a thank-you note.’ He said, ‘Oh, no, you don’t.’” It’s been a whirlwind tour these past few weeks, flying in and out of Manhattan to meet with curious NFL front offices, memorizing the life stories of every offensive line coach in the league as part of the final leg of his pre-draft homework. When you ask Risner about the rest of his free time, he texts you a screen cap of the notes he keeps on his iPhone as a daily to-do list: Do the LITTLE THINGS Remind people in life that I love them “That’s something I look at every single day,” Risner says. “Every day is a gift from God. You’ve got to be thankful for the people in your life.” If you start at the apex of the left shoulder, descend south from the three wooden crosses and veer west, you eventually hit a range of mountains, a reminder of home, the Front Range glistening in the distance. Beneath the peaks is an impeccable tattoo tracing of a hand-written note, eight lines deep, from his father, Mitch, his high school football coach at Wiggins, his mentor and his champion. “He was always very athletic, so at 6-5, he played middle linebacker for me,” the elder Risner says of Dalton, who as a senior was pegged as the fifth-best prospect in the state by 247Sports.com and Rivals.com despite playing for a Class 1A program in a town with a population just a shade under 900. “He couldn’t cover the width of the field, but he could cover the box.” Dalton is the middle son of five boys in Mitch and Melinda’s household, ages ranging from 17 to 26. If the kid wasn’t the quickest in the bunch, he might’ve been the strongest: whenever a wrestling match ensued between Dalton and little brother Kaeson, which was often, it was the nearest piece of family furniture that usually came out the biggest loser. “I would call it ‘reckless abandon,’” Mitch laughs. “The dude was just reckless. Of all my kids, he’s the most reckless kid I have.” About a year ago, Dad noticed the door to the guest bedroom had started to look a little wonky. When he circled back to the Reckless Kid — who hadn’t lived at home in ages — for an explanation, Dalton burst out laughing. “When he was a sophomore (in high school), he and Kaeson were fighting and Kaeson ran into the room and closed this door to hide from him,” Mitch recalls. “And Dalton took a running start and put his shoulder into this door and broke it off the hinges. And he said, ‘Oh, crap, we’ve got to fix it,’ and they just got some scrap wood. I said, ‘How many more are there of these issues around the house?’ And he said, ‘I’m not telling.’” When it came to football, though, father and son almost always pulled on the same rope. Dalton grew up a fan of the Broncos and of Nebraska, and when he told his father how cool he thought it would be to suit up for the Huskers one day, Dad made it their mission, once the Reckless Kid’s growth spurt kicked in, to get his son in front of as many college eyeballs as a rented Toyota Yaris would allow. “’In this life,” he said, “there’s going to be one person that’s going to make it,’” Dalton says. “’And you’re going to make it. You’re going to make it, man.’ And that was just a really cool thing for my father to say, that he believed in me.” They attended a half dozen college football camps the summer after 8th grade. They hit another 12 after 9th and 15 after his sophomore year, constantly doubling back, methodically widening the net. One summer, Mitch had so many trips booked at so many different campuses that he decided to rent a 2011 Yaris from Denver International Airport specifically for the trek. On the plus side, it was electric, which saved on fuel. On the other hand, the passenger seat wasn’t exactly designed for a 6-foot-5, 290- something-pound lineman to ride shotgun. “Every time I moved my knees, and I had my seat moved all the way back, I would be trying to take a nap,” Dalton recalls, “and (Mitch would) say, ‘Dude, your knee just put it in ‘park.’” “He leans the seat all the way back and I swear to you, his head was on the back seat of the car,” Mitch adds. “His knees were on the dashboard console. Our shoulders were rubbing the whole time.” They soldiered through 2,600 miles in that thing, anyway, a regular Butch and Sundance — once pulling an all-nighter to get from the University of Wyoming to Kansas State with Dalton cramping up for half the trip. “Those are the times we look back to,” Mitch says, “because if we didn’t do those things, if we didn’t get in front of schools, and work on your craft … (I told him), ‘Ain’t nobody coming to Wiggins to see you. I’m not going to teach you the techniques well enough.’ “Some kids want it. Some kids don’t. Some kids want it and do something about it.” If you follow the tree on the right shoulder down, another matching bicep mountain range bleeds into another tattoo tracing of a hand-written note, this one six lines deep, a replica of Melinda’s elegant cursive.