Broncos lost their first game last season

A little Hip Hop tune "It's My Time" starts to play over the PA system as Richard Quinn, Nathan Overbay and Riar Geer warm up at the 10 yard line, practicing their first step into motion from a 3 point stance. Another Hip Hop song comes on and Lonie Paxton is long snapping. Quinn and Orton take a break and watch on as Tebow continues throwing. Patrick Honeycutt joins the crowd of players assembling to watch Lonie work. J.D, Walton is snapping to Kyle Orton, Russ Hochstein to Brady Quinn, and Dustin Fry is snapping for Tebow. Nick Greisen is long snapping to Prater which makes me think that he is the backup to Paxton. HORN.

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Practice is officially started and the crowd roars. Punt protection is taking place next. I see Kolby Smith, Jammie Kirlew, Nick Greisen, Kevin Alexander, Eric Decker, Richard Quinn on the snap with Kyle McCarthy and Bruce Hall as Gunners and David Bruton as the Personal Protector. Lonie Paxton and Britton Colquitt make up the rest of the unit. The Gunners and Personal Protector switch players and Wesley Woodyard and Darcel McBath take over the Gunner positions while Eric Decker works as the Personal Protector. They practice the snap and Get-off into their coverage lanes. A scout team lines up across them wearing red socks over their helmets, so the "Eye in the Sky" can tell who is who. The punt protection practices their blocking assignments for preventing a Punt Block, holding their block for a set time and then breaking into coverage.

They take about five more reps--by the way, Tebow is still throwing--to Royal now, and the HORN blows.

The team lines up at the Goal line to start the "Hop, Skip, and Jump" warmups. U2's "Streets Have No Name" blares across the air. A few times out to the 20 yard line and back. Then the players run sideways while twisting to left and right, out to the 30 now, and then back to the Goal. Paul Duncan and Eric Olsen look huge. Brian Dawkins comes over and hugs Kyle Orton. Another song plays and the warmups continue a few more minutes, and I notice a player wearing #96 who isn't listed. I assume it is the newly acquired Joe Mays. HORN.

The Team disperses out every 5 yards and spreads out for the stretching interval. Strength and Conditioning Coach Rich Tuten calls out the cadence as Josh McDaniels twirls his whistle and watches on. Ron Fields call for some more tape on his left ankle. Robert Ayers, Justin Bannan, Chris Baker, Jarvis Green, Ben Garland, Brandon Stokely, Kyle Orton, Jabar Gaffney, and Knowshon Moreno are stretching in front of me. I have a pretty good view at the 41 yard line, which is a good place to sit. It keeps the Scissor Lift with the All-Seeing Eye from my view of the far field. As the stretching ends, McDaniels comes over and shakes hands with Justin Bannan. This conjures up a vision of David and Goliath.

They disperse and the Linemen gp off to on to one end and the Receivers and Running Backs run the pylons with the ball while ball boys and Assistants try to slap the ball away as "Eye of the Tiger" plays.

The Broncos haven't been to the playoffs since finishing 13-3 in 2005, then reaching the AFC championship game. For a team with some of its most accomplished players well into the 30-somethings — the team's defense could start as many as nine players at least 30 years old — the career clocks are ticking.

Especially after the historic fade down the stretch last season, when a 6-0 start dissolved Champ Bailey into an 8-8 finish. However, Bailey and others say it's important to remember the Broncos were still 8-4 when the season headed into December and still had a playoff chance when they were crushed by the Chiefs in the season finale.

"We've got to have that urgency, to make sure everybody's feeling that, and that's kind of up to some of the older players," Bailey said. "That's the hardest part of it all, just keeping that urgency, doing all the little things from start to finish, just to get in, because once you're in, who knows? But to not get in and go home, it's almost like last place at that point."

"I've always been a guy who pushes for perfection anyway," Broncos safety Brian Dawkins said. "But over the last few years, you do realize the amount of time you have in front of you as a player is not what it was. I've already been blessed to play as long as I have. That sense of now does increase, of doing things now, just because of time."

Broncos coach Josh McDaniels spent plenty of the team's resources in free agency and the draft to beef up the offensive and defensive lines. He has also spent a great deal of time in recent months on stopping the bleeding. After the Broncos lost their first game last season — in November to the Ravens — they had two four-game losing streaks over their final 10 games.