Comment on Rockies Mailbag: Can Nolan Jones rebound? Is Colorado bad at drafting?

Add Georgia to the list, now that we’re naming names. And USC. BFN is a BFD. At least 9.3 million people watched CU and CSU trade haymakers last September in the Rocky Mountain Showdown. You don’t think Lincoln Riley happened to be one of them? “His DMs were ringing off the hook (in December),” Rich Nicolosi, father to Rams quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi, told me Friday.

For a chance to spread his wings as a defender, Brandon Jones left South Beach and ventured to the mountains of Colorado. With the Miami Dolphins, Jones felt he was only viewed as a box safety who could pressure quarterbacks and make plays at the line of scrimmage. While those traits are important, the former Texas standout thinks he has more to provide. And the Broncos are giving him the chance to prove it. “It’s just a (wide) variety of situations I will get to be in that I usually haven’t been in during my career.

According to the recruiting experts, Charlie Condon was never supposed to be here. Not even close. He was never supposed to be the No. 3 pick in the draft or sign for a record-tying $9.25 million bonus. And he was surely never supposed to be the future face of the Rockies, much less the best hitter in college baseball. But Condon became a star at Georgia and earned all those achievements and projections after walking on with the Bulldogs without a single Division I offer out of high school in Marietta, Ga. “As a sophomore in high school, I was about 6-foot-3, 170 pounds, and I just wasn’t ready to be recruited,” Condon said.

Edmonton was the last team standing in the Western Conference in June, and the Oilers look a step ahead of everyone else as we close out July. Several teams in the West have improved this offseason, particularly among the ones that did not make the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs. But as we reach the dead period of the NHL offseason, the Oilers look like the class of the conference after a breakthrough season and a couple of shrewd signings. How did all 16 teams in the West fare this offseason?

Attendance Did not practice: Physically Unable to Perform List — S Delarrin Turner-Yell (knee) and LB Drew Sanders (Achilles). Non-Football Injury list — RB Blake Watson (muscle strain). Out — Brandon Jones (hamstring) and OL Nick Gargiulo. Head coach Sean Payton said he expects Jones to be out for one to two weeks with a hamstring injury he suffered during practice on Friday.

This is not a competition. It is a decision. The Broncos continue to rotate three quarterbacks, splitting first-team reps between Jarrett Stidham, Bo Nix and Zach Wilson. The starter will be decided on mindset, not the stat sheet. What philosophy will coach Sean Payton adopt? Play the steady veteran who likely gives the Broncos the best chance to win early in the season?