Moreno could play for Broncos Thursday night
By Mike Chambers
The Denver Post

Broncos rookie running back Knowshon Moreno, the club’s top draft pick, might play in Thursday’s final preseason game against the visiting Arizona Cardinals.

“He would be capable of playing, but I’m not exactly sure if that’s the smartest decision,” Broncos coach Josh McDaniels said after the team’s walk-through practice today.

Moreno suffered a knee injury in Denver’s preseason opener at San Francisco, but returned to practice on Tuesday.

“We’re going to talk about that, taking all the information into account and making sure we do the smart thing by the player and make sure we’re ready for next week,” McDaniels said.

from the denver post:

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Moreno plans to have a ball
By Lindsay H. Jones
The Denver Post
Posted: 09/13/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT

(John Leyba, The Denver Post)
Rookie running back Knowshon Moreno sat tucked inside his locker at Broncos headquarters Thursday morning, rapidly tapping his right foot as he quietly thumbed through his playbook.

After a frustrating start to his NFL career, Moreno is set to make his long- awaited debut today in the Broncos’ season opener at Cincinnati.

It’s no wonder he can barely sit still.

“I’m real excited, anxious, nervous, all at the same time,” Moreno said. “I’m just so ready to get out there and see what I can do. I can’t wait to run around a little bit. I know the night before the game, I’m not going to be able to sleep that much. I probably will have to control myself a little bit when we’re out there because I’m going to be off the walls.”

How much he will play against the Bengals is a closely guarded secret. But Moreno, a former Georgia star, insists there’s no doubt he will play.

At last, Broncos fans will get to know Know-shon, and not just the player who hurdled college linebackers while rushing for back-to-back 1,300-yard seasons in the Southeastern Conference. They will get to know the guy who is the grandson of a magician, a card shark, an avid bowler, aspiring golfer and chess master.

“He’s got that fun-loving spirit that you just want to be around. It’s just infectious, he loves life,” said close family friend Michelle Lugo, who has known Moreno since he was a young boy. “We don’t want him to lose that; we don’t ever, ever want him to lose that.”

Moreno became a Bronco in April, when the team made him the No. 12 overall pick in the NFL draft. But he held out for the first eight days of training camp before signing his rookie contract. He then sprained the medial collateral ligament in his right knee on his second carry in the team’s first preseason game, at San Francisco on Aug. 14. He hasn’t played in a game since.

It wasn’t the way he envisioned his pro career starting. But he’s practiced for 10 days, has

“He’s really taken us all on a great ride.” – Mildred McQueen, on her grandson Knowshon Moreno, shown as a young boy
ditched the orange “no-contact” jersey and is on the verge of shedding a protective knee brace as he readies for his first NFL game.
Great support from “Grammy”

The kitchen of Mildred McQueen’s modest middle-class home in Belford, N.J., might as well be a museum chronicling the football career of her grandson, Knowshon Moreno. To McQueen, though, he’s just “Shon.”

Shon is smiling in photos large and small, a mix of personal snapshots and professional portraits and magazine covers, a collage of memories from his decorated careers at Middletown South High School and the University of Georgia.

The newest addition to the mural is a hand-drawn poster created by one of Moreno’s relatives congratulating him for making it to the NFL.

There’s a different framed photo hanging in McQueen’s bedroom. In it, a stocky preteen Moreno is wearing a white football jersey and orange pants. It’s the first photo of him wearing a uniform, taken during his first season of Pop Warner in the nearby Atlantic Highlands a decade ago.

McQueen never knew much about football, but she never doubted her grandson could play.

She still seems amazed that the boy she raised, the oldest of her four grandchildren, is an adult, let alone a pro.

“Not in my wildest dreams,” McQueen said. “I mean, he’s really taken us all on a great ride.”

Without question, Moreno, 22, is still a grandma’s boy.

As a child, he shuttled between the

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homes of his father, Freddie Moreno, and mother, Vera- shon McQueen, and his grandmother’s place, first in the Bronx and later in New Jersey. By the time he was 10, the family decided he needed stability. It was his grandmother who could provide it. Moreno moved in full time with the lady he calls “Grammy” and everyone else calls “Miss Mildred” in Belford.
Her home remains his home base, even though he recently purchased his first home in the Denver area.

“She’s the calm and sense in his life, there’s no doubt about that,” said Steve Antonucci, Moreno’s high school coach at Middletown South.

McQueen was the one who, after Moreno begged her to, first enrolled him in Pop Warner football. She was the one who called his high school and college coaches for frequent updates, and when Moreno left Georgia for the NFL, it was McQueen, along with a handful other close family friends, who helped Moreno interview potential agents and financial advisers. McQueen said she plans to move to Denver next year, after Moreno’s cousin — whom McQueen is also raising — graduates from high school.

“I have a lot of people in my family that I’m close to that have helped me out, but she’s definitely the one,” Moreno said.

“Always bigger, faster”

Belford sits only a couple miles from the Atlantic Ocean, just more than an hour’s drive from New York City. Locals describe the area, with towns such as Middletown, Red Bank and Holmdel, as a close-knit, family-friendly area with plenty of pride in its residents.

Moreno might not rival rockers Bruce Spring-steen and Jon Bon Jovi, who live in neighboring towns, for national cachet, but on the sports scene, he was a local legend here long before the Broncos came calling.

Before Moreno played a down of high school football, he was known as the kid who did a windmill dunk in a middle school all-star basketball game. The kid who would grab a ball and dare classmates to try to catch him and tackle him.

“He was always bigger, faster. He always stood out as an athlete,” said friend and former high school teammate Mark Longo, a defensive back at Cornell.

Moreno was unpolished as a running back when he arrived at Middletown South High School in the fall of 2003 because he had played Pop Warner ball only sporadically. Coaches were immediately impressed with his athleticism, however. When he scored three touchdowns in a come-from-behind victory in the second game of his freshman year, Antonucci said he realized just how special Moreno could be.

“From that point on, he became one of the most dominant football players I’ve ever seen play this game at this level,” Antonucci said.

Moreno graduated in 2006 after leading Middletown South to a 36-0 record and three state titles from his sophomore through senior years. He set a New Jersey record for career touchdowns (128) and still owns school track and field records in the 100-meter dash and long jump.

Antonucci keeps the jersey Moreno wore in his final high school game folded in a desk drawer, waiting to be framed. The school plans to retire his No. 24 soon.

“In your lifetime, in a public school setting like this one, it’s very rare you get a kid like that,” Antonucci said. “For him to be in the NFL right now, that’s even more rare. I don’t know if I’ll ever see anything like that again.”

Motor never runs out of fuel

Moreno followed a friend from a neighboring town, offensive lineman Kade Weston, to Georgia, but arrived on campus in Athens in the fall of 2006 to find three older running backs ahead of him.

For the first time in his football career, Moreno didn’t play. As he waited out his redshirt year, Moreno became “a heck of a scout- team player,” said Tony Ball, the running backs coach at Georgia.

“His motor goes only one speed, and I tell you, our defense had to get used to that,” Ball said. “As a scout-team player, the norm is to run the play that you see, and then when the defense gets there and tries to hit you up, you let them do that. But here you have a back that has a natural instinct and is very competitive. A defender shows up, and Knowshon drops his shoulder and accelerates to finish.”

Moreno showed similar gumption once he began playing in the fall of 2007, first as a backup and then, by late October, as the starter. Moreno created a stir in the Southeastern Conference with his six 100-yard games as a freshman, but also by his hustle between plays.

“I have a good friend I played with who is now a coach down in Atlanta, and he said it’s so funny, he scouts and goes to games all over Atlanta, and in every game, there is always the one player who gets tackled, then sprints back to the huddle because they watched Shon do it,” said Joe Trezza, one of Moreno’s high school coaches. “They loved him so much down there.”

Midway through the 2007 season, fans in Athens began wearing T-shirts honoring Moreno. “Do You Knowshon?” they read — as much a play on his first name as a warning to the rest of the SEC as to what was to come.

Moreno, now that he’s starting to get comfortable in Denver, is eager for Broncos fans to get to know him too. All that starts today.

“I don’t care if I only get two snaps a game, as long as I’m helping my team out, whether in practice or a game,” Moreno said. “As long as we’re winning and making each other better, that’s the main thing.”

Lindsay H. Jones: 303-954-1262 or ljones@denverpost.com

The Moreno file

During the 2009 season, Broncos fans will have the opportunity to get to know Knowshon Moreno, a young, charismatic running back who hopes to make his mark on Denver.

Age: 22.

Critical stats: 5-feet-11, 210 pounds (though Broncos coach Josh McDaniels said Moreno weighed in at 217).

Credentials: Rushed for 2,734 yards in two seasons at Georgia, becoming the first Bulldogs tailback with back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons since Herschel Walker. Finished his high school career at Middletown South with 6,268 yards rushing and set a New Jersey record with 128 total touchdowns.

Hobbies: Bowling, golf, chess, card games.

Pet: Chocolate Lab named Papi, who will be joining Moreno in Colorado.

Future aspiration: Actor.

Lindsay H. Jones, The Denver Post

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