It's not that DE Jason Hunter doesn't appreciate his promotion to the first team as the Broncos' strong-side DE. But he wasn't expecting it when it came earlier this week because he didn't think he was having a great training camp, so he won't accept it as anything but temporary.
"I'm not thinking about being satisfied right now because I could come out here and have a bad practice and be bumped down to the twos or threes," Hunter said.
Such modesty is a natural outgrowth of his career, much of which has been spent around the fringes of NFL depth charts, with just 23 starts in six previous seasons. In 2010, the Lions cut him during training camp, but the Broncos desperately needed a fill-in for Elvis Dumervil, who had torn his pectoral muscle and was lost for the season. A year later, Hunter was buried on the depth chart during training camp. He clawed up from the third team to a starting assignment in place of the injured Dumervil by Week 2 before settling in as a reserve.
"He's real humble," Denver MLB Joe Mays says. "We're all fortunate to be in this position, and he actually knows that. For him, he's working his way up the depth chart, he's trying to do whatever he can to get in the coaches' good graces. So far, so good."
But the experience of living on the edge of losing a roster spot also can lead to over-aggression, and at times during Friday's practice Hunter nearly crossed the line between harmless intensity and penalties. But that's the kind of energetic performance that endeared him to defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio.
"Every day he brings it with passion," Del Rio said. "I haven't seen him yet not be ramped up and ready to play hard and tough, so that's why he's running with the ones right now."
Meanwhile, the demoted Robert Ayers is left looking for ways to improve after working on the second team for a third consecutive day.
"A lot of things to work on, a lot of things to get better on, correct mistakes, this, that and the other," Ayers said.
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