Broncos cancel practice because of too many injuries
The last thing that a NFL coach wants to deal with is injuries. It’s a contact sport and collisions are inevitable, so a coach can only hope that his players don’t unnecessarily put themselves in harm’s way and get up after pile-ups and vicious tackles.
But when they get up limping and in agony, a coach can’t help but feel for his players. But the show must go on and another guy is asked to step up and contribute. Unfortunately for the Denver Broncos, head coach Josh McDaniels has seen his players drop like flies during the camp and he has witnessed more than a dozen injuries so far, without even playing a single preseason game.
The injuries vary in severity and only one seems to be season-ending. Fifth year veteran linebacker, Elvis Dumervil, suffered a torn pectoral muscle. "We're not sure exactly the timetable that we're talking about," McDaniels said, according to the Denver Post.
"So we're not going to look at it as the glass is half empty, we're going to look at it the other direction. And hopefully we'll have him back at some point. But we have a lot of players in the locker room that I know are going to have to combine their efforts to try and do some things that certainly he was responsible for, while he is gone."
Then Denver’s top draft pick Thomas from Georgia Tech injured his left foot on Saturday night, the same foot that had sidelined him in March. But it was reported that the injury is not serious and that the rookie wide receiver should not miss a lot of time.
"We saw the last couple days what we thought we saw on film, and I think the game is starting to slow down for him," McDaniels said of Thomas. "Again, he's still a rookie, he still made, I would say, plenty of mistakes this evening, but you know, God gave him some things that he uses to his advantage, and he does a great job of that."
It was clear from the beginning that Denver’s training camp wasn’t going to be easy for the players nor McDaniels. Both running backs Knowshon Moreno and Correll Buckhalter went down during the first practice of training camp. Moreno, 23, pulled his right hamstring and is expected to return to action shortly, and Buckhalter is back and is ready to go after he was cleared by doctors, and after it was reported that he was suffering from head and neck pains.
“Certainly, you don't want to see two of your guys that you really count on come off the field on the first day of training camp," McDaniels said.
In order to prevent any further injuries, the Broncos cancelled Sunday’s practice to allow guys time to rest up and heal their wounds. The team will also have Monday off as their next practice is scheduled for Tuesday. The Broncos drafted the rookie to give quarterback Kyle Orton a big target down the field to compensate for the lost of Pro Bowl receiver Brandon Marshall, traded to the Miami Dolphins.
No other NFL team has been plagued by this amount of injuries at this stage of training camps and it forced the coaches and owners to sit down and cancel practice before they end up with no more players for their preseason opener against the Cincinnati Bengals on 15 August.
It will be interesting to see how McDaniels uses quarterback Tim Tebow. Will he keep him in the pocket or design running plays for the former Gator? With all the occurring injuries, it’s not unlikely that the play calling will be rather cautious and reserved as the Broncos might simply be content to escape out of Cincinnati with healthy players rather than the win.
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