Broncos like how defense shaping up

WOOD, Colo. — It was only a minicamp practice, but a big statement was made by one of the new Denver Broncos.

“Didn’t I tell you to stop throwing over there?” linebacker Al Wilson barked at Jake Plummer and his understudies.

Over there, where the quarterbacks were throwing during Thursday’s session, was Champ Bailey. And the Pro Bowl cornerback routinely slapped the ball to the ground or intercepted Plummer.

Only time — specifically playoff time — will tell when it comes to the Clinton Portis-Bailey trade. At this early stage of the game the Broncos are happy with their new cover man.

“I definitely don’t want to disappoint them,” Bailey said. “I’m going to go out there and do what they want me to do. If it’s go out and shut a guy down, that’s what I’m going to do.”

Usually when a player changes teams and/or systems he finds himself lost in translation. This week Bailey and John Lynch have made it seem like they’re fluent in Bronco.

“It is almost like I’m translating one language into another,” Lynch, the veteran safety who helped lead Tampa Bay to a Super Bowl, said. “I hear a call, I think back how we played it in Tampa, then I translate it over to Denver talk.”

Talk, as Mike Shanahan likes to say, is cheap. But the Broncos’ defense — whether it’s Bailey smothering a receiver or Lynch meeting a running back at the line of scrimmage or Wilson escorting Plummer out of bounds before he can slither up field — is creating an early buzz.

“They played good defense around here as it was last year. But I think there is good defense and then there is being something special in this league,” Lynch said. “I think we can make that jump.”

A year ago, Shanahan’s top free-agent acquisition on the defensive side of the ball was Daryl Gardener. Even more disappointing than the defensive tackle’s costly off-field fracas or public verbal assault on the head coach was a failing effort when he was healthy.

This year’s marquee free agents express their aggressive sides on the practice field.

“I think sometimes there is a perception that once you get to the NFL the hustle and all that goes out the window,” Lynch said. “I think you have to show them it’s about work and working as a team. It’s the little things that separate you.”