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The quarterback situation is unsettled in Denver. And the team’s defense is ready for that, because the defense spent most of last year coexisting with an unsettled quarterback situation.

“Honestly, the thing about this team and our defense is we worry about what we have to worry about,” linebacker Shane Ray told reporters on Wednesday. “That’s being the best that we can against other offenses. Last year there was a whole lot of conversations [about] quarterbacks and how we felt and what we were going to do. I think everybody was the same on the defense, mentally, [saying], ‘We have to do our job.’ We can’t worry about those things. We just have to continue to make sure that we excel and give them the ball back.”

Ray also has given 2016 first-round pick Paxton Lynch some advice on how to excel.

“I talked to Paxton [Lynch] the other day just about what it’s like to be a first-round pick and the expectations that you’re going to have to deal with,” Ray said. “In this organization, when you’re a first-round pick, I think across the board everybody has huge expectations of you to contribute to help this team. That’s something where last year I felt a lot of heat. I had to learn how to tune everything out and just focus on being the best player that I can be. . . .

“I told Paxton to take it day-by-day. That’s all you can really do as a rookie. With all of the pressures that you’re going to have of being the leader of your rookie class — Paxton’s expectation is going to be to come in and play along with Mark [Sanchez] and take his tutelage. Whatever the organization has planned for him, it’s going to bring its own kind of stresses. He just has to relax, take it day-by-day, take the coaching, embrace being a rookie, just have fun and love your job.”

It’s good advice. It will be easier for Lynch to love his job if he’s playing, and if he’s playing well.