ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Usually if there's any chirping going on at sweltering NFL training camps, it's between the massive offensive and defensive linemen who are pounding into each other or the wide receivers and cornerbacks fighting for 50-50 passes.
The biggest beef at the Denver Broncos' training camp this summer is between 6-foot-3, 290-pound defensive tackle Malcolm Roach, a notorious smack talker, and 5-11, 184-pound receiver Marvin Mims Jr., the NFL's reigning All-Pro punt returner.
Asked about the chirping back and forth at a spirited practice this week, Mims replied, “Yeah, I mean, it’s just Malcolm Roach. I mean, I sit next to him in the locker room, guy doesn’t shut up. He’s talking crap to receivers. It’s like, ‘Dude, like, you’re a fat guy. Like, go worry about that. Leave me alone.’”
They then took their “beef” to social media, jawing online.
Roach stepped up to the podium Friday knowing the first question would be about his good-natured bickering with Mims.
“Y'all think I really worry about 19?” Roach said. “I see him every day in the locker right by mine. Y'all think I talk? He really talks more than me. But I ain't worried about Marvin. Marvin knows he's not about to cut that ball back across the middle. That's all I have to say about that.”
Of course, Roach did have more to say.
“I can lose this weight,” Roach said. “He can't lose them looks.”
When coach Sean Payton was asked about the back-and-forth, he expressed surprise at the combatants.
“Malcolm, you hear him before you see him, and I like that energy about him," Payton said. "But, yeah, I wouldn't have picked Mims and Roach. I would have picked so many other combos."
Maybe it has roots in the Red River Rivalry. Roach went to the University of Texas; Mims hails from the University of Oklahoma.
Bo Nix finally threw his first interception of training camp, and it was a doozy. Safety Talanoa Hufanga made a leaping grab near the line of scrimmage for a pick-6 during team drills Friday.
“The interception, it was an RPO (run/pass option) and if you look at his distance from the throw I bet it was like eight yards,” Payton said. "And so to be able to go up and catch that with a crowded look in front of him? I'm anxious to seek it on film. I saw it from behind the line of scrimmage.”
That's the kind of play the Broncos are counting on this season from the free agent who left the San Francisco 49ers along with inside linebacker Dre Greenlaw to come to Denver last spring.
“You know, if I asked you to give us the best safeties that are in the Hall of Fame, the traits are always instincts and football smarts,” Payton said. "Some are faster than others, but it's hard to be real effective at that position if you don't have those football instincts. And certainly he brings that. I made a comment in the offseason: there's certain players the ball finds them, and he's one of those guys.
“So, that play was sick.”
Construction of the Broncos' $175 million training facility hit a milestone Friday with a “ topping out ” ceremony to commemorate the final beam being lifted into place.
Team owner Carrie Walton Penner signed the timber before a giant crane lifted the structural beam from the north side of the construction site to the south facade.
The Broncos broke ground last year on the 205,000-square-foot facility that will combine their football and business operations under one roof for the first time in franchise history. It's scheduled for completion in May.
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Denver Broncos safety Talanoa Hufanga talks to teammates as they warm up at an NFL football training practice Monday, July 28, 2025, in Centennial, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Denver Broncos defensive tackle Malcolm Roach, center, raises his arms to acknowledge the applause of fans while warming up between defensive end Zach Allen, front, and defensive tackle Jordan Miller during an NFL football practice Friday, July 25, 2025, in Centennial, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Speculation about links among a handful U.S. scientists who have died or disappeared in recent years was largely confined to niche online communities less than two months ago. As of Friday, the number had grown to at least 12 and was at the epicenter of U.S. government, with both the FBI and Congress investigating possible connections.
At a press gathering April 16, President Donald Trump was asked about “10 missing scientists with access to classified stuff, nuclear material, aerospace, they've all gone missing or turned up dead in the last couple of months" and whether he thought there were ties among them.
“Well, I hope it's random, but we're going to know in the next week and a half, ” Trump said.
Those speculating about the cases suggest that the individuals were targeted, perhaps by global U.S. adversaries, because of the sensitive nature of their work related to topics such as astrophysics, nuclear weapons and pharmaceuticals. But so far no evidence has been found that definitively links them or establishes coordinated foul play.
Jen Golbeck, a professor at the University of Maryland who studies conspiracy theories, said the idea of a sinister connection between tragedies involving scientists is a common trope within conspiracy theory communities.
“There are a lot of people who work for national labs and universities and government research centers and some of them will go missing or commit suicide or die,” she said. “Any year you could take a bunch of those and name them as something sinister if you wanted to."
The deaths and disappearances in question garnered suspicion from online sleuths as they occurred, but it was the disappearance of 68-year-old William “Neil” McCasland, a retired Air Force general, on Feb. 27 that fueled a wider belief that there could be a nefarious connection between these incidents, spurred in part by his high-ranking military work and connection to the UFO community.
Around this time people began pointing to other examples of scientists who had died or gone missing, ultimately going as far back as June 2022.
The Daily Mail published an article on March 22 naming five individuals and reporting that “a chilling pattern has emerged after a string of US scientists died or went missing in recent months.”
On April 15, a question about the missing or dead individuals came up at a White House press briefing and by the next day Trump said he had met with advisers and the issue was being investigated. FBI Director Kash Patel reiterated the importance of looking for connections in these cases Sunday on Fox News. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is conducting its own investigation.
“That’s pretty typical for how a lot of this stuff works, is that there are these fringe online spaces, they start it, it spreads, it gets picked up by ... the more conspiratorial-minded politicians who do have platforms and makes its way onto more mainstream social media and then grabs that attention,” said Golbeck.
Callie Kalny, co-director of the Center of Media Psychology and Social Influence at Northwestern University, agreed that these conspiracy theories are following a familiar pattern of starting in more niche venues before finding their way into the national conversation.
“Once it’s made it to the mainstream and once we experience this repeat exposure to it, it sort of just embeds into our minds as something that maybe we just take as fact or we just take as something that is common knowledge without ever really critically thinking well, where did this come from to begin with? And is there any validity to this?” she said.
There are some parallels among the dozen or so individuals at the heart of these conspiracy theories, such as associations with Los Alamos National Laboratory and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and some of those named had specialized knowledge and high-level security clearances. But the list contains many reasons to doubt the claims spreading online.
In some of the cases, investigations had already been conducted, with suspects identified or charged. In others, no connections were apparent or evidence was lacking or not as convincing as it first appeared.
For example, Nuno F.G. Loureiro, a physicist and fusion scientist who was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is on the list. He was fatally shot on Dec. 15 by Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, who was also responsible for a mass shooting at Brown University days prior. Neves Valente took his own life. A motive has not been established, but the two men knew each other decades earlier as classmates in Portugal studying physics.
Carl Grillmair, an astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology who discovered water on a distant planet, was fatally shot on Feb. 16, according to local reports. Authorities charged 29-year-old Freddy Snyder with Grillmair’s murder and carjacking. Snyder is being held on a multimillion-dollar bond.
Melissa Casias, then 53, went missing on June 26 in New Mexico. She worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory and while some online assumed she was a scientist there, according to her LinkedIn profile Casias actually worked as an administrative assistant.
As for McCasland, he left home without his phone, prescription glasses and wearable devices, according to the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office. His hiking boots, wallet and a .38 caliber revolver could not be found at the house. There is no evidence indicating foul play and he remains missing.
McCasland’s wife, Susan Wilkerson, wrote in a Facebook post on March 6 responding to online rumors that since his retirement 13 years ago, McCasland “has had only very commonly held clearances” and that “it seems quite unlikely that he was taken to extract very dated secrets from him.” She added that although he “had a brief association with the UFO community,” he does not have any privileged knowledge about aliens.
“In the face of tragedy or uncertainty, people seek patterns and explanations rather than accepting ambiguity or coincidence,” said Donnell Probst, executive director of the National Association for Media Literacy Education. “Narratives suggesting hidden connections or intentional wrongdoing can feel more satisfying than incomplete or evolving information, even without supporting evidence.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Wednesday, April 15, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before departing on Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House, Thursday, April 16, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)
