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ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) – One of the quietest players in NFL history sure had a lot to say Thursday. Former Denver Broncos center Tom Nalen made up for all those “no comments” during his 15-year career during an extraordinary half hour that at times showed precisely why he was wise to stay silent rather than speak his mind. While meeting with the media to talk about his election into the team’s Ring of Fame, Nalen insisted he wasn’t a dirty player but acknowledged trying to injure San Diego Chargers defensive lineman Igor Olshansky in a game in Denver in 2006. Nalen dived at Olshansky’s knees while his quarterback was spiking the ball in the waning seconds of a game the Chargers held on to win 35-27 on Nov. 19, 2006. Olshansky threw two punches at Nalen and was ejected. Both players were fined. Nalen insisted it wasn’t a cheap shot but payback for what had happened on the previous play. At the time, his teammates said Olshansky had grabbed Nalen’s facemask. Asked what was the difference between being dirty and being tough, Nalen said: “Probably penalties. You get called for it, right? No, I played clean football. I wasn’t a cut blocker, I wasn’t like those other four guys next to me. Those were the dirty ones. If you’re cut-blocking at center, you’re doing the wrong thing probably. So, I wouldn’t consider myself a dirty player.” WEB EXTRA VIDEO: Watch Nalen’s Complete News Conference “I know people will bring up the Igor Olshansky play in 2006,” Nalen added, “but if people would look at the play before that and realize why I did what I did – and even on that play I missed the cut – so you know definitely I wanted to blow his knee out on that play because of what happened the play before. But that, you know, is that dirty? I don’t know. It’s revenge, kind of, so.” Too bad he wasn’t quoted more often during his playing days, someone suggested. “I know,” Nalen concurred. “I needed to save it all. So, I can spew it out.” Actually, Nalen’s been speaking his mind on his ESPN radio show he shares with Les Shapiro in Denver over the last several months, but this had to be the first time he was asked – and answered – 40 questions. Except for rare exceptions during his playing career, Nalen stuck to the offensive linemen’s code of silence that was fostered by his position coach, Alex Gibbs, who recently returned to the Broncos as an offensive consultant. Nalen said he hasn’t heard from Gibbs but can only guess what he’d think of his radio gig: “sellout, hypocrite, all that good stuff.” The 42-year-old Nalen played 14 seasons with the Broncos, including their back-to-back Super Bowl years, before a balky knee sidelined him in 2008, after which he retired as a five-time Pro Bowl player. His 188 career starts are second-most in franchise history behind John Elway. During his career, Denver’s running backs topped 1,000 yards 11 times and the 395 sacks allowed by the Broncos during his tenure were the third-fewest in the league over that span. His induction ceremony will be at halftime of the Broncos’ game against Philadelphia on Sept. 29, and Nalen said that while he’s thrilled to be the 24th member of the Ring of Fame, he’s dreading his acceptance speech already. “At halftime, I’m hoping there won’t be 76,000 fans. Hopefully, they’ll be getting a beer when I’m speaking for 12 seconds or so,” he said. “I’m not looking forward to that at all, no. I think I’ll put my helmet on, I’d feel much more comfortable.” Centers and safeties don’t tend to get bronze busts in Canton, Ohio, and Nalen isn’t counting on getting elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame anytime soon, but he said getting into the team’s Ring of Honor means more anyway. “It comes from the team. I spent 15 years here and they felt like I was worthy of the 23 other guys that are in the Ring of Fame and that means a lot because they knew everything about me, warts and all,” Nalen said. Asked for his secret to sticking around so long with one team, he cracked, “I had naked pictures of somebody.” Actually, in the era of the 300-pound-plus linemen, at 280 pounds, Nalen said he was the prototype for Gibbs’ and Mike Shanahan’s zone-blocking schemes that highlighted agility and lateral movement more than raw power and bigger bodies. Elway called Nalen “the epitome of grit, toughness and athleticism for centers.” Nalen was stunned when team president Joe Ellis surprised him with the news of his election on his radio show Wednesday. He said he never expected to get elected – that’s why he promised so many different teammates toward the end of his career that they could introduce him if he ever made it. “Two of my kids were old enough to watch me play and my youngest was not,” Nalen said. “My kids know what I did but this gives them some sort of tangible evidence that Daddy did his job well and was honored for it,” Nalen said. “I think it’s pretty cool. I got in my back pocket: `Daddy’s name’s going to be on the stadium, so, you know, do your damn homework.’” Nalen also acknowledged he was intimidated by Elway, the team’s Hall of Fame quarterback who is now the Broncos’ executive vice president. “Even his last year in `98 was my fifth year and I still couldn’t get the strength to go up and ask the guy for an autograph, I was so intimidated,” Nalen said. Nalen said that while he hated the meetings, he still loves football and wants to coach offensive linemen in college or the pros someday. He helped out high school teams in the Denver area for four years after his playing career was over but found the Xs and Os too remedial. He said he got no responses to any of the 50 resumes he sent out to small colleges, however. Nalen even spoke with Elway a couple of years ago “and he said he was going to put me on a list, but that list must be pretty long,” Nalen said. “I would like to coach football. It’s in my blood. It’s what I like to do. It’s where I’m most comfortable. But I don’t think it’s going to happen, so I’m cool with it now. I kind of resigned myself. I mean, I was putting out resumes to Division III schools that you never heard of in New England and got no reply,” Nalen said. He said he’d love to tutor Broncos center J.D. Walton “and go out and drink beers after, too.” On other topics, Nalen said: -he loves talking sports because it’s a challenge and “for 3 1/2 years, I did nothing more than drive my kids around to crappy sporting events and coach high school football.” -Pro Bowls “are pretty ridiculous … the people that know you aren’t the ones voting on you.” -Gibbs keeps returning to football because “he just maybe he likes to torture people would be my guess.” -he’s not worried about the effects of his numerous concussions he had during his playing days. “It would be fatalistic to think about now what could happen to me. I think if I get to 52, 53, I’ll be happy. All gravy after that. I was talking to Gary Zimmerman about that last night. It’s an interesting conversation, talking about dying, it’s good stuff, good stuff right there.” Nalen also said this year’s Broncos remind him of the Super Bowl teams he played on that followed their upset loss to Jacksonville in 1996 when they were 13-3 and the AFC’s top seed – same as last year’s team that was beaten by Baltimore in the playoffs. “Maybe I should hold judgment but I cannot. I really feel like they’re the best team in the NFL,” Nalen said. “And (San Francisco’s Michael) Crabtree getting hurt yesterday doesn’t hurt their (chances).” Told he had made up for all his no-comments in one sit-down news conference, Nalen stood up, took off his microphone clip and cracked a smile. “See,” he said. “Don’t hate me.” By ARNIE STAPLETON, AP Pro Sports Writer (© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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Nalen Insists He Wasn’t A Dirty Player, But…

DENVER (AP) – For the first time ever, all four Hall of Fame members of the Denver Broncos gathered under one roof – an old hangar at what used to be Lowry Air Force Base – and they were there to honor team owner Pat Bowlen. With John Elway, Shannon Sharpe, Floyd Little and Gary Zimmerman on hand, the 69-year-old Bowlen received the Mizel Institute’s 2013 Community Enrichment Award for his philanthropic leadership in Colorado and his nearly three-decade long stewardship of the Broncos. “I’m glad there are four now, we’ve come a long way since ’04,” said Elway, who was the first Bronco to get a bronze bust in Canton, Ohio. “Hopefully, we can get a couple more in there soon.” Like Bowlen. “Hopefully, one day Pat will be in the Hall of Fame himself because he deserves that,” Zimmerman said. Bowlen is chairman of the board of Denver Broncos Charities, which has donated more than $25 million to charitable organizations over the last 20 years. “He’s a generous guy, he’s got a big heart,” said Elway, Bowlen’s quarterback-turned-front office chief. And he’s a demanding, fiercely competitive and behind-the-scenes owner with a reputation for spending whatever it takes to field a winner. “It’s not easy to win in this league but he knows how to get the right people in the right spots and then he gives them the rope to do their jobs,” Elway said. “He has tremendous instincts about people.” At 292-199-1, Bowlen and New York Giants founder Tim Mara are the only three-decade owners in pro football history to win 60 percent of their games. The Broncos’ 177 home wins are the most in the NFL since he bought the team in 1984, when Elway was his quarterback, not his front office chief, and the Broncos’ five losing seasons during those 29 years are the fewest in the league over that span. “I know there are a lot of great owners in the National Football League,” Sharpe said. “Some have won more championships than Mr. Bowlen. I would be hard-pressed to believe that there’s an owner that cares more about his city, about his state, about his players than Mr. Bowlen does.” When Elway brought Bowlen his first of consecutive championships in the late 1990s, the owner took the Lombardi Trophy in his hand at center stage after an epic win over heavily favored Green Bay and declared, “This one’s for John.” Elway longs to return the favor. “Well, that’s my goal,” Elway said. “That would be a special moment. But we still have a lot of work ahead of us.” “I think there’s a good chance for that,” Zimmerman said. “I think there’s a good chance for more than one. I see a team right now that if things go right … they’re queued up to be a force for the reckoning.” Elway said Bowlen’s competitive nature as a triathlete when he was younger translated into his business life “and how he ran the Broncos.” “Winning starts at the top,” Elway said. “… He’s there every day still. We all know what he wants.” Another Lombardi Trophy. Zimmerman said he first realized Bowlen was a different type of owner when he signed up for a turkey his first Thanksgiving in Denver, thinking it was all a joke. “In Minnesota we always had the turkey scam and they had the sign-up sheet and I came in and thought it was all a scam and then I come into the locker room and there’s Pat sticking turkeys into our lockers,” Zimmerman recounted. “That was the first time I really understood what Pat really was about.” When Peyton Manning kicked off his whirlwind free agency tour in Denver last year, Zimmerman said he knew right then and there that any other teams pursuing the four-time MVP were just wasting their time. “I knew he’d be a Bronco before he did because once he visited here and met with Mr. Bowlen I knew there was no way he could go anywhere else,” Zimmerman said. Sharpe said Manning’s signing shows that Bowlen is as driven for a championship today as he ever was. “I wish T.D.’s knee and my knee could hold up, we could help the cause,” Sharpe said of former teammate Terrell Davis. “He wants it really bad. I think he deserves it.” Little played long before Bowlen bought the team but he has just as deep a respect for the man who retired his jersey and put his name of the team’s Ring of Fame. “Pat’s been one of the greatest owners in the NFL,” Little said. The Super Bowl trophies the Broncos won in the late 1990s were transported from the team’s headquarters about 20 miles away and were on display at the Mizel Institute’s gala at the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum where Bowlen was feted. “This is a great night for Pat Bowlen, and it’s a well-deserved honor,” team president Joe Ellis said. “He’s always trying to put a great team on the field each and every year and then giving back to the community.” The Denver-based Mizel Institute consists of a Jewish art, culture and history museum and the Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab (The Cell), dedicated to combating the threat of terrorism. – By Arnie Stapleton, AP Sports Writer (© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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Broncos’ Best Gather To Honor Owner Pat Bowlen

ENGLEWOOD — Wes Welker presents the Broncos’ passing game with a numbers problem. Already, the Broncos had one receiver, Demaryius Thomas, who had 94 catches last year, and another, Eric Decker, who had 85.

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Broncos’ Welker adds more firepower

While the Denver Broncos were willing to stick out Peyton Manning’s neck in terms of guaranteeing him $20 million in 2014, the team is covered by insurance if he is unable to play due to any other injury.

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Insurance covers Manning, would help Broncos’ cap (The SportsXchange)

As we and many others reported yesterday, the New England Patriots released defensive tackle Kyle Love this week in the wake of the news that he has Type-2 diabetes. And for those who were wondering whether Love’s release might have been for other reasons, there’s a lot of evidence that there were no other reasons. First, there was the fact that New England released Love, who started 25 games for the team over the last two seasons, with a non-football injury designation. And, according to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk , the Pats gave Love two options: Either retire for a year, in which case the team would not move to recover any part of the $500,000 signing bonus he received as part of his two-year, $3.09 million contract extension he signed in 2012, or take a risk on playing sooner, and take a walk. Love chose the latter, and as it turned out, he didn’t have to wait long for a team interested in his services. The Jacksonville Jaguars reported, per the team’s official website , that they picked Love up off waivers on Thursday. Love had lost about 30 pounds off his 315-pound frame in the offseason, which left him unable to participate in off-season activities for the Pats, but according to his agent, Richard Kopelman, Love is back in fighting shape and ready for action. “Prior to the diagnosis, Kyle recently experienced unexplained weight loss, but since being diagnosed and having altered his diet, Kyle has regained most of the weight he lost, is in good health, and was not limited in any way during offseason workouts in which he was engaged up until being told he would be released,” Kopelman told ESPN Boston on Wednesday. Love is the second former Patriots defensive lineman picked up by the Jaguars this week — they also acquired defensive end Brandon Deaderick off waivers on Tuesday.

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Jacksonville Jaguars claim Kyle Love after release from New England Patriots, diabetes diagnosis (Shutdown Corner)