DENVER: Juwan Thompson, an undrafted rookie out of Duke, has joined the fantasy discussion. He ran for 59 yards on 6 carries against Seattle, and defenders consistently fell backwards when trying to tackle him. He picked up 18, 15 and 20 yards on three carries, and he had a 22-yard run called back. He’s not fast enough; he looks like he might run a 4.7 in the 40. But he’s got good size (5-11, 225) and seems to have some patience and feel running behind blockers. Most notably, he’s really good in pass protection, which isn’t a strength of any of the team’s other running backs. In Denver’s offense, if you can’t pick up blitzes they don’t want you on the field. Montee Ball should be the starter, but he underwent an appendectomy, so he might not be ...
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... quite 100 percent when the season starts. Ronnie Hillman probably will be the No. 2. He has good speed but has been plagued by fumbles. Hillman was ho-hum with the first unit offense in the opener against a good Seattle defense; he had a 9-yard run, but he gained only 6 yards on his other 5 runs. There’s also C.J. Anderson, but he’s a limited guy -- just a year removed from being an undrafted rookie himself. Anderson left the Seattle game with a concussion. More so than any other player on any other team, we’re interested to see more Thompson this week. He might play a role for the team. In most games, we expect Denver to use two tailbacks, with the starter probably getting about two thirds of the work, and a second back picking up the scraps. ... We haven’t seen anything out of Emmanuel Sanders that makes us think he’s going to make a Decker-sized impact in this offense. Decker caught 87 passes for 1,288 yards and 11 touchdowns last year, but he signed with the Jets. Sanders is a different kind of receiver -- a lot smaller. They didn’t throw any passes to him in the opener, even though the first unit was out there a lot (Manning threw 13 passes). While that No. 1 group was out there, Sanders rotated with Andre Caldwell. Our leaning is that when the real games start, both of these guys will continue to play. They seem to have similar ability; they’re both former third-round picks. Caldwell has the advantage of having worked with Manning for the last two years. There’s also nice potential with any wide receiver starting for a team that might throw 40 touchdown passes, but our leaning is to let some other guy in your league select Sanders. ... The Broncos selected Cody Latimer in the second round. A year from now, he’ll probably be a starting wide receiver for them. But with smarts and experience being so crucial in this offense, we don’t think you’ll see Latimer much this season. He didn’t play at all with the first-team offense in the preseason opener, and didn’t make any impression in his limited time with the backups. ... The Denver Defense should rank among the leaders in sacks. It had 41 last year, and it looks a lot stronger. DeMarcus Ware looks healthy after an injury-plagued season in Dallas, and Von Miller missed half of last year. Ware and Miller look like the best one-two punch of pass rushers in the league.