Broncos LT Clady could miss season

Denver’s Super Bowl hopes may have taken a hit before the team even opens training camp.

All-Pro left tackle Ryan Clady – possibly the best player in the league at his position – suffered a torn left ACL during team drills on Wednesday and will likely miss the 2015 season, the Broncos confirmed on Thursday.

“He pulled himself out (of drills), said his knee was sore,” Broncos coach Gary Kubiak said. “We really weren’t that worried last night, everybody felt good, but we felt like we’d take a look at it this morning, and unfortunately we got some horrible news.”

Kubiak is not misusing the word horrible. With Clady gone, Denver now has to replace four of the five starters from last year’s offensive line, which ranked first in the league in sacks allowed with 17. Peyton Manning was also sacked on the lowest percentage of dropbacks of any quarterback in the NFL at 2.7 percent.

Manning, who was never the most mobile guy in the world in his prime, is 39 years old and entering his 18th NFL season behind a hugely inexperienced line.

Rookie Ty Sambrailo, a second-round pick out of Colorado State who was tabbed to play right tackle, moved to the left side in Thursday’s practice. Chris Clark is now working out as Denver’s primary starter at right tackle. The team also agreed to a deal with free agent tackle Ryan Harris, who has previously played with the Broncos as well as the Texans.

Peterson’s reason for no-show keeps changing

At first, the Vikings didn’t have Adrian Peterson’s back during last year’s trials and tribulations when he was placed on the commissioner’s exempt list. Then, his agent made it clear Peterson was interested in continuing his career anywhere but Minnesota.

And now it turns out the reason Peterson isn’t showing up at Minnesota’s OTAs is because he’s standing up the rights of all players, apparently casting himself as some sort of Curt Flood figure.

Or so he tweeted on Thursday.

“I love people who think they know it all!” Peterson wrote before ranting. “Smh, Research how many NFL teams hasn’t honored a player’s contract & learn something. Question for the people, is a contract two sided or one? Ok great two sided! Well why when one party decides … Mr. ? we wan’t you to take a pay cut now or better yet flat out release you! There’s never no talk about honoring a contract!”

“I know hundreds of player’s that wished their team would’ve HONORED the contract! But instead got threw to the side like trash,” Peterson tweeted. “A lill crazy how one side has so much power that they can do as they please when it come to the contract! But when the other-side (player’s) Feels for whatever reason! Family, Change of scenery or simply – what they feels just might work best for them! Those same laws don’t apply!”

After cooling down for a bit, he finished his thoughts.

“To clarify, since analysts & everyone else have the answers to what place in MY Heart this ‘rant’ came from… This is not against the Vikings. I am just frustrated that our union did not get guaranteed contracts for its players. NFL players deserve guaranteed contacts like Our NBA and MLB brothers.”

Given the nature of the game, it’s hard to dispute that Peterson is right on that point – though he’s also not going to change anything before the next collective bargaining agreement.

Peterson’s apparent issue is that there is no guaranteed money in his contract beyond the $12.75 million he is owed this season, and he wants to make sure he is taken care of in 2016 before reporting back to the Vikings.

Bradford limited during Eagles OTAs

The Eagles traded for damaged goods when they got quarterback Sam Bradford from the Rams, but for now coach Chip Kelly is comfortable with that fact.

Of Bradford’s recovery from knee surgery, Kelly said, “We think he’s on schedule. We all think there’s three phases: There’s medical rehab, there’s performance rehab and then there’s prepare to play. He’s probably right at the tail end of medical rehab. He’ll probably start throwing some 7-on-7 next week, but I think he’s right on schedule in terms of where he is.”

For now, the Birds are rolling with Mark Sanchez taking the reps as their No. 1 quarterback, and Kelly said if the season began today it would be Sanchez, Matt Barkley and Tim Tebow duking it out for the starting job.

Fortunately for Philadelphia, there’s another four months to go – though given Bradford’s injury history, at least one of the other three probably needs to be ready.