Broncos vs. Lions Injury Report: All hands on deck for Denver

As one might expect after an extended period of time off (basically an extra bye week) the Denver Broncos are very healthy for their game against the Detroit Lions on Sunday Night Football this week.

Aqib Talib returned to practice on Thursday after being sent home sick, and Peyton Manning was back on the field as well after his routine day off on Wednesday. Cornerback Kayvon Webster also made his way back to the field.

For the Lions, it was another day of practice without star linebacker DeAndre Levy. The Lions’ returning leading tackler has been out with a hip injury, and unless he practices on Friday, he’ll be a questionable game-time decision at best this weekend.

Also not practicing for Detroit was former first round pick Brandon Pettigrew, which has paved the way for more recent first round pick Eric Ebron to sort of take over the spotlight as the team’s top pass catching tight end. With an emerging Ebron, the Lions have a pretty interesting quartet of offensive playmakers with him, rookie tailback Ameer Abdullah, and receivers Golden Tate and Calvin Johnson.

Here’s the full injury report for both teams, courtesy of Denver Broncos PR:

If the players who were limited on Thursday remain so on Friday, it’s likely they’ll be considered questionable, but it doesn’t seem like the Broncos have any guys who are going to be out with injury this week. It’s possible they will continue to take it slow with Kenny Anunike’s knee and make sure he’s 100 percent healed before coming back to game action, but it would be a treat to have him make his debut on Sunday.

It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but the regular season debut of Anunike has been long-awaited for Broncos fans. He emerged as an undrafted rookie in 2014 when the Broncos would have had not only two UDFAs make the team, but they would have had two Duke Blue Devil UDFAs make the team.

That was before injury sent him to the season ending reserve list, and now he’s had another slight setback after a dominant preseason opener where he had a +5.5 grade from Pro Football Focus with 5 stops, 4 tackles, a sack, and another hit on the QB.

The Broncos have a secret weapon in Anunike, and if they can get him in the rotation before Derek Wolfe comes back, they should have a very deep group from which to pull talent as the season progresses.

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