Denver Broncos struggling with injuries, flu bug ahead of Lions game
The Denver Broncos are struggling badly with injuries and now sickness ahead of their contest with the Detroit Lions in week 16.
The Denver Broncos are certainly beaten up this season in terms of injuries piling up. The last thing this team needed, as if anyone ‘needs’ it, was a sickness going through the locker room.
There were reports of sickness floating around the Kansas City locker room last week and that defensive end Frank Clark had actually lost 12 pounds from whatever he was fighting off.
Now, it appears as though the Broncos are going through something similar, but perhaps not quite as extreme, in their locker room. In all, there are a whopping 19 players on the Broncos’ injury report.
Drew Lock was added to the Broncos' 19-player injury report because of an illness. He's practiced in full all week though and will obviously start Sunday.
— Nicki Jhabvala (@NickiJhabvala) December 20, 2019
The Broncos have six players dealing with illness/cooties. pic.twitter.com/vHDy4mOk2r
Five guys are on the injury report with illnesses, including two starting offensive linemen.
The offensive line is where the Broncos are really hurting. Four of their five ‘starting’ offensive linemen are on the injury report here with only Garett Bolles not listed.
Right tackle Ja’Wuan James probably won’t play the rest of this season after missing almost the entire 2019 season with knee issues. James was rolled up on in the first game of the season, played a handful of snaps against the Indianapolis Colts, and played the first half against the Houston Texans.
Right guard Ron Leary suffered a concussion a couple of weeks ago and is still not cleared for action, which is definitely concerning.
Center Connor McGovern is not given a ‘questionable’ designation so if he’s sick, they’re obviously just expecting him to play through it.
Finally, left guard Dalton Risner — one of the top rookies in the NFL in 2019 — has been out with a sickness since early in the week. He was listed as limited on Thursday, but then didn’t practice on Friday.
Whatever’s going around must not be good.
Wouldn’t it be something if the Broncos’ offensive line, from left to right, looked like this on Sunday:
- LT Garett Bolles
- LG Patrick Morris
- C Connor McGovern
- RG Austin Schlottmann
- RT Elijah Wilkinson
dark. Next. Broncos players in focus vs. Lions
That could be disastrous. The Broncos had better be hoping this flu bug passes so at least Risner is back. The right side of the line will likely remain the same and hopefully the running game is stronger this week against Detroit so that the pass protection isn’t getting bodied all day.