A day after returning to the practice field, Arian Foster looked even better on Thursday.
"He looked good," head coach Gary Kubiak said. "He did more. He put his pads on with everybody else. I think we went from like 10 reps to 20 today."
Kubiak said the three-time Pro Bowl running back "felt fine" after yesterday's work.
"We'll just keep taking it almost as if he started training camp yesterday," Kubiak said.
Foster won't likely play against New Orleans on Sunday either.
"No, I don't see him playing," Foster said. "Like I said, I hope he has such a good week that he's feeling like, 'Hey, I can go play 10-15 plays,' and talking to me that way. I think with the time he's missed, the smartest thing is to get in a couple of good weeks of practice."
On Tuesday, Foster echoed Kubiak's thoughts about his suiting up in the preseason, and stressed that he'll be set for the Week 1 opener at San Diego.
"I feel like I'll be ready for September 9th without any (reps)," Foster said. "I've been playing for a while, so I know game speed. I just have to get myself back acclimated with just football, but I'll be fine."
In Foster's place, backup Ben Tate will continue to get the first-team reps versus the Saints. After that, Kubiak detailed the order of competition between Deji Karim and rookies Cierre Wood and Dennis Johnson.
"Ben's going to play a lot," Kubiak said. "We're going to play Ben as if he's a starter playing a half of football. He'll probably get spelled by Deji and then after that, I think we need to take a hard look at Wood and Johnson the most."
Tate spoke Monday about the opportunity to work with the starters against New Orleans, and said it would benefit the squad.
"It's going to be good for this team," Tate said. "I think it's going to be good for all of us to get our timing down and fix up some of the little errors that we have and just all get on the same page."
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