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DENVER —**With the offseason underway, players have taken some time off and many are getting back to working out. Some train back at their homes across the country but some, like Colorado native Mitch Unrein, get to stay near their home and work out on their own at the Broncos' facilities.
With Unrein's free agency approaching, we got a chance to talk to him about how his offseason is going and his familiarity with the coaching staff.
One thing he made clear is that he wants to stick around with the Broncos in his home state.
"Hopefully I can be back in Denver because this is the place I want to be and the only place I want to be," Unrein said. "Only time will tell, but it's been a good offseason. It hasn't snowed too much—it's snowing tonight, obviously, but it's just good to be in Colorado, no matter what it's doing outside."
Unrein is already familiar with new Broncos Head Coach Gary Kubiak and some of his coaching staff, having signed with the Texans as an undrafted free agent out of college, and he's excited about the opportunity to play for them again.
"I had Kubiak my rookie year when I was down in Houston—great guy, great motivator," he said. "Unfortunately, I wasn't good enough my rookie year to stick on that team but hopefully I'm good enough this time to stick on this team. The D-line coach, Bill Kollar, great motivator. He gets anyone to work for him. Blood, sweat and tears, as they say, for that guy. So I'm looking forward to it, and hopefully be here in Denver next year."
Kollar, who helped develop defensive behemoth J.J. Watt in Houston, is well known for how much he gets out of his players and Unrein said he could attest to that in what he experienced transitioning from the cold of Wyoming to the heat of Houston after college.
"He's intense. I think the players really feed off of that," Unrein said. "My rookie year, I came down from Larimie, Wyoming, where it was 60 degrees or less, and I was going to Houston, Texas, where it was 105 [degrees], 90 percent humidity and I wasn't prepared for that, but he kind of flipped a switch on all of us rookies and made us play even better than we thought we could our rookie year.
"[Kollar] knows a ton about football," he added. "I have a lot of respect for a guy who's played in the league for eight years. He's so knowledgeable about the position. So you have a lot of respect for a guy that played in the trenches, especially back then when it was even more brutal than it is now, today."
Right now the players are limited to working out on their own, but soon enough the Broncos will be back in action preparing for another season and Unrein couldn't be more excited at the thought to be a part of it again.
Go back in our way-back machine and see what the Broncos defensive tackles looked like when they were growing up.