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Ashley Lelie

Life in the NFL

By Ashley Lelie



Lelie happy to be
contributing more
to Denver offense


I made some mistakes at the beginning of our game against Kansas City, but I picked it up at the end.

The big mistake was I dropped the ball on a deep pass. My legs got caught up in the legs of the defensive back and I lost concentration and just dropped it. It could have been a potential touchdown, if I had broken a tackle.

It was a real intense game and we fought back and won.

I ran a reverse for over 20 yards and I didn't really have to put any dekes or moves on anybody because the blocking was good.

All of our receivers practice the reverse, so it wasn't specifically designed for me, but I got the call this time.

I also made a catch for over 20 yards on the same drive that helped tie the game in the third quarter.

In the fourth quarter, my two catches were part of the tying drive that sent the game into overtime. One of the catches wasn't significant, a short catch on a blitz when Brian Griese had to throw it quick. The other one was on a slant route and it went for a first down.

It definitely makes me feel like I'm a part of the team now, contributing and earning my paychecks.

Two other times, the ball came to me -- one was tipped away and Griese threw behind me on the other one.

Our defense did pretty good against one of the best offenses in the NFL. You can't really stop them, but the defense did just enough to contain them, especially in the fourth quarter.

As a team we made a lot of mistakes, and we could have done a number of things better, but we won and we did the best we could.

Shannon Sharpe (12 catches for 214 yards) had a great game. He got into the middle of the Chiefs' defense and found the holes. Our coaches designed these plays just for the Kansas City defense, and he did it just like the coaches designed. He was wide open.

So far this whole season, I haven't heard any trash talk. It's weird, because every game the guys talk about how much the other players trash talk, but I still haven't heard one word of it yet.

I'm really hoping we can win this next game. We're at defending Super Bowl champion New England. They're coming off a bye and we'll be going into a bye next week.

That bye week, I plan to go home to Hawaii. Even though I don't own a home there yet, sooner or later I will because that's where I want to be.

We're still trying to put a whole game together, four quarters. Then we'll start dominating teams. This last game, we came out and played in the second half.

We never have an easy week. We have to fight and scrap for another nine weeks.

The Super Bowl is the main goal, and right now we're working on getting into the playoffs.





Former University of Hawaii receiver Ashley Lelie
was selected in the first round by the Denver Broncos in
the NFL Draft. His diary will appear in the Star-Bulletin
each Tuesday following Sunday games.



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