The Denver Broncos have an opening for a No. 1 receiver

Thomas — the Broncos' No. 1 draft pick this year and the receiver the team hopes will make Denver fans forget about Brandon Marshall — was a celebrity at the Federal Correctional Institution, a low-security women's prison in Tallahassee, Fla.

Inmates shouted out his name across the visitors room, and Thomas signed autographs.

But the thing Katina Smith kept focusing on was that ink on Thomas' arm.

"You got another tattoo!" she said.

Thomas pulled

both sleeves of his shirt up to reveal to his mother the full creation: The word "Family" on the inside of his right biceps and "First" on the inside of the left, joining about 10 other tattoos that cover his arms and chest.

"You've got to slow down with the tattoos," Smith said.

It had been nearly a year since the two had seen each other, since Demaryius was last able to make the nearly four-hour trip, take off his shoes to go through the metal detector and walk through a series of heavy metal doors to see his mother and his grandmother, Minnie Pearl Thomas. Both women have been housed here since 2000, when they were convicted of trafficking cocaine.

They have been incarcerated for half of his life.

"I know it has been hard for him. He's the one who holds everything inside," Smith said in an interview at the prison three days later. "But at the same time, it has given him the strength to go on and be better than the example I set for him."

Thomas has been here only five times, including the most recent visit July 9. He has seen his mother each time, but this latest visit marked the first time he had seen his grandmother in 11 years. He was just a boy, then. Now he is 6-foot-3 and 229 pounds, a grown man, nearly a millionaire and on the verge of NFL stardom.

The trio sat around the table for three hours, playing the card game Tonk and tic-tac-toe, talking about family and football, and the new life Demaryius is about to embark on, with Broncos training camp starting this week. They laughed loudly and deeply, and the women flashed their identical smiles. They couldn't remember seeing Demaryius so happy.

As they talked, Minnie Thomas kept leaning over to touch her grandson and to grab onto the Broncos jerseys shirt and blue Broncos football jerseys warm-up pants he wore. The NFL gear somehow made it all seem more real, a tangible sign that yes, Demaryius, the child they nicknamed Bay Bay when he was an infant, had turned out just fine.

"I'm happy to see them, but it's emotional," he said. "It has gotten a little easier because we talk a lot on the phone. But it was real hard when I was young. As I get older, it is different."

School first

Demaryius Thomas and his two younger half sisters were fast asleep on March 15, 1999, when police officers burst into their mother's house in Montrose, Ga.

The officers were shouting, Thomas remembered, ordering his mother and stepfather out of bed. Smith was panicked, but she asked the officers if she could at least get her children ready for school like normal before they took her to jail. She helped the children get dressed, fed them breakfast, packed their backpacks and went outside to wait with them for the bus.

"I hugged them and said, 'I'll see you when I get back,' and told them, 'I love you,' " Smith said, dropping her head. "But I never came back."

His grandmother was arrested the same day, and both women were charged in Brian Dawkins federal court with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and cocaine base.

"I held money on two, maybe three occasions," Smith said. "They said I was the bank, but I wasn't the bank."

Minnie Pearl Thomas sold drugs — marijuana — for the first time in 1986, and was arrested for the first time that same year. Despite her first trip to jail, Minnie Thomas was hooked on the rush of selling drugs and was becoming accustomed to the extra money it provided her family. It wasn't long before she was manufacturing and selling crack cocaine out of her home.

She was arrested again in 1991 but resumed her business after she was released at the conclusion of a 14-month sentence in a jail near Milledgeville, Ga.

"I mostly did it to make ends meet, to buy my kids what they wanted, so they could wear what the other kids were wearing, so I could keep my house nice on the inside," Minnie Thomas said.

Demaryius, who was born in December 1987, was Minnie's oldest grandchild, and old enough to know what was going on inside her house. He remembered seeing his grandmother making the crack and the stream of strangers coming and going, leaving behind their makeshift crack pipes.

"I knew my grandma was selling it and my mom was keeping some money," Thomas said. "I told my mother one time that they needed to stop because I had a dream that they got in trouble. I started crying like every night after then. And then it finally happened."

The Denver Broncos have an opening for a No. 1 receiver. It could be filled by first-round rookie Demaryius Thomas or speedy third-year player Eddie Royal. But right now, it sounds like nine-year veteran Jabar Gaffney, who had one of the best years of his career last season, will get the first crack at the role when the team opens training camp Aug. 1. "I'm looking at it the way I've always looked at it, going in like I was the No. 1," Gaffney said. "Just waiting for my opportunity to make more catches, have more impact, more chances to make more plays." Largely because he could play any at any wide receiver spot in the offense, Gaffney put up a career-high in receiving yards in 2009. He totaled 732 yards. He also recorded his second-most receptions in a season, 54. Gaffney's biggest attributes on the field have often been his instincts and knowledge. Bill Belichick, Gaffney's former head coach in New England, once described him as a "tactician."