TotalBroncos

DENVER (CBS4) – The Denver Broncos’ top draft pick, defensive lineman Derek Wolfe, has taken a long, winding road to get to the NFL. He grew up outside of Lisbon, Ohio near the Pennsylvania border. He was raised in a one-parent home and never met his father. Wolfe could have turned pro after his junior year at the University of Cincinnati and taken the NFL money sooner. But Wolfe buttoned up his chinstrap and went back to school. “If you don’t fight for everything you have, you’ll be quicker to give it up,” Wolfe told CBS4′s Vic Lombardi. “If it’s too easy, then you don’t appreciate it. I appreciate everything I have because I’ve had to fight for everything I have.” Lombardi asked Wolfe if he ever wanted to meet his father. “It doesn’t matter, sure,” he said. “If he’s out there, sure. I’m sure there are a lot of guys out there who want to jump on the bandwagon … I don’t know his name or anything.” Wolfe said the curiosity used to get to him but not anymore. “He probably doesn’t even know either, so what am I made for?” Wolfe got along with his mother until his stepfather came along. He’s been estranged from his mother ever since. “There is (no relationship with her), really,” he said. “I forgive her for everything she’s done, but I just don’t want her a part of (my life).” He does have family, but they’re just not blood. When Wolfe was 15 he moved in with his best friend Logan Hoppel at the Hoppel family farm. “I was just kind of living out of a bag. I’ll stay here for a couple of days and then I could tell they didn’t want me to stay … I never really was intruding, they tell me, but I felt like I was. So finally I ended up with my buddy Logan and his mom was like, ‘You’re not leaving.’ “ “I just look at Derek like one of my own kids. You know you love him and you hope he has success and you just want the best for him,” Kris Hoppel said. “People don’t get to pick their family and it’s the people that you surround yourself with, that you care about; they become your family.” “They don’t treat me any different than they would when I was 15, 16 years old,” Wolfe said. “Two days ago I was cleaning pig poop out of a pig pen; shoveling it out of there with a pitch fork because the pigs were sick and needed their pen cleaned and everybody else was gone. So I was the one who had to do it and I’m still paying for it with my sinuses.” A lot of other people helped Wolfe along the way. He can thank his high school coach for his college scholarship. “My job was, when I met him, I told him that with his size and his athletic ability, that he could get his college paid for,” his high school coach Rich Wright said. The Hoppels threw Wolfe a party the night the Broncos made their call. He said they get mad at him for thanking them for everything they’ve done. “I guess succeeding is enough payback for them,” Wolfe said.

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Broncos Top Pick Derek Wolfe Took A Long Road To The NFL

While New York Jets QB Tim Tebow and the bounty placed on his virginity are sparking teens around the world to commit to abstinence, other NFL players live a more, shall we say, promiscuous lifestyle. This lifestyle is landing some players, like veteran Terrell Owens, in court and on shows like “Dr. Phil” for not paying child support and taking care of their children.

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Tim Tebow’s Virginity and Terrell Owens on ‘Dr. Phil?’ Fan Perspective (Yahoo! Contributor Network)

The news has the same surprise quotient you’d expect from Andrew Luck getting all the reps right away with the Indianapolis Colts, or the idea that the Denver Broncos will be doing pretty much whatever the heck Peyton Manning wants. That said, you Rex Grossman and Kirk Cousins fans will have to shine it on. At the end of the Washington Redskins’ rookie minicamp on Sunday, head coach Mike Shanahan made it very clear that Robert Griffin III, the Baylor quarterback selected second overall in the 2012 NFL Draft, will be his starting quarterback from his first official professional snap. Shanahan watched Griffin in five practices over three days, and saw enough to put it as simply as possible : “He’s the starter. Period,” So there. “Any time you pick a player with the second pick of the draft and you give up another two No. 1’s and No. 2 and you move up four spots, you’ve got a game plan in mind,” Shanahan said. “We’re going to adjust our system to what he feels comfortable with, and we’ll watch him grow, and we’ll do what we feel like he does the best.” Griffin, the Heisman Trophy winner and consensus second-best player in this draft class behind Luck (actually, we tend to think he’ll be the main man over time ), was originally thought to be an eventual starter on a progressive plan as he transitioned to a West Coast offense after the spread/three-digit system he excelled with in college. But it didn’t take Shanahan long to see and know: The kid is ready — or, at least, ready to learn the ropes at the highest level. The more teams got to know Griffin through the pre-draft evaluation process, the more they were impressed with his overall intelligence and ability to pick up different schemes at an accelerated pace. To that end, when the Redskins return to the practice field for OTAs on May 21, the coaching staff will have a plan in place around RGIII as the top kick.

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Surprise! (Not.) Shanahan names RGIII his Day 1 starter after rookie minicamp (Shutdown Corner)

The 2012 NFL Draft is in the books. Here’s a look at every pick from Round Three. Links to other Draft news.

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NFL Draft: Analyzing Round Three

Hoping to close the book on bounties, the NFL suspended New Orleans Saints defensive captain Jonathan Vilma without pay for all of next season Wednesday and gave shorter bans to three other players for their leading roles in the team’s cash-for-hits system that knocked key opponents out of games from 2009-11.

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4 Saints suspended for bounties