excerpt:
Usually, they might forecast within two or three players of the contingent with which they actually enter the regular season.
What even veteran coaches often can't predict, though, is who will win the key intramural positional battles that highlight training camps every summer. Because if they could identify the best player ahead of time, there really wouldn't be much need for the crucible of training camp competitions played out under characteristically withering conditions.
There will be, of course, one or two such head-to-head (and, in some cases, head-to-head-to-head) bouts in all 32 training camps over the next six weeks. Many of them are high-profile in nature and already have been touted as summer highlights: the four-way foray for the New York Jets' starting quarterback job; the competition between Dominic Rhodes and first-round draft choice Joseph Addai for the right to succeed Edgerrin James as the starting tailback for the Indianapolis Colts; the anticipated fray pitting Chicago Bears tailbacks Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson; the free-for-all for the two starting defensive tackle spots on the Philadelphia Eagles' front four.
But there are lesser-publicized competitions that will take place, too, some of them with potentially high-stakes consequences.
One of those will be in Denver, where speedy Tatum Bell, former Heisman Trophy winner Ron Dayne and the relatively unknown Cedric Cobbs will vie for the right to become the latest Broncos 1,000-yard rusher. There is no odds-on favorite entering camp, although the odds are excellent that whomever wins the job will register four-figure rushing yards.
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