Boo birds in Denver

Somebody must have passed out cheesesteaks and soft pretzels in Englewood, Colo., last night. And maybe a few cans of Schmidt's.

The fans who turned out to watch the Denver Broncos practice - a franchise record of 13,402 - were in a Philadelphia kind of mood.

The crowd booed practically everybody out there.

New quarterback Kyle Orton - brought in when Jay Cutler talked his way out of town - was booed any number of times.

Not that he didn't deserve it. Orton was twice intercepted by free-agent cornerback Andre Goodman, and the second pick was returned for a touchdown.

Orton also was jeered when he threw behind wide receiver Chad Jackson.

"That's their prerogative," he said of the fans.

The crowd also gave it to Brett Kern for a pair of poor punts and let kicker Matt Prater have it for missing consecutive 43-yard field-goal attempts at the end of the scrimmage.

And this was on Aug. 6. How nasty are they going to be after a loss to Oakland or Kansas City this fall?

Quotable. Eli Manning got a lot of ribbing from his fellow New York Giants after agreeing to a monstrous, $97 million contract.

"He's a cheap guy," defensive end Justin Tuck told the Bergen (N.J.) Record. "He's still driving around in that Toyota. That's just money his kids will probably spend."

For the record. Newsday reports that Eli Manning, who stands to earn $106.9 million over the next seven years, is the eighth NFL quarterback to be under contract for more than $100 million at one time.

Eli, Ben Roethlisberger and Brett Favre have won Super Bowls to go with the big bucks.

The other five - Drew Bledsoe, Donovan McNabb, Daunte Culpepper, Michael Vick and Carson Palmer - have a total of two Super Bowl appearances between them.

And no rings.

Twitterings. Scott Fowler of the Charlotte Observer on the new training camp craze, Twitter:

"It's fast. It's superficial. And in a short-attention-span world, it's a massive hit.

"When the Twitter server went down for nearly three hours yesterday, thousands of tweets about what various people were having for breakfast in America tragically went unsent."