With Broncos training camp officially ending Friday morning, the veterans were running out of time to prank the rookies. Late Wednesday night, they found a way. "I had no part in that. I was MIA," said third-year WR Eric Decker. "We do some fun things at night. It's kind of under-the-radar -- it's classified."
"Clothes thrown in the lobby, beds wet and i lost all my socks and underwear," tweeted rookie DE Derek Wolfe, who was one of several rookies to find his clothes tossed in a massive pile in the lobby of their training-camp hotel.
That the rookie hazing happens away from public eyes is a change from when Decker was a rookie in 2010. When Josh McDaniels coached the team, rookies were forced to slide through a muddy patch of grass to recover a loose football and later given wacky haircuts -- like Tim Tebow's, in which the top of his head was shaved bald and the rest was left intact, making him look like a friar.
"It's just fun joking around and stuff. It's good fun. You've got to have some of that to put smiles on guys' faces," Decker said.
Some would rather have just gone through camp quietly.
"When I was young, I just kept my mouth shut, so the guys kind of left me alone, and I was fortunate for that," recalled DT Justin Bannan, an 11-year veteran. "There's definitely been a little bit of hazing going on behind the scenes."
"Our rookies had it a little tougher," added TE Joel Dreessen, who said his rookie hazing with the New York Jets seven years ago was limited to singing Colorado State's fight song while sitting in a cold tub.
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