Denver Broncos wide receiver KJ Hamler talked about reaching a low point in the 2021 season after multiple season-ending surgeries.
Injuries are the worst inevitability of sports, and while some avoid the injury bug, other players, unfortunately, get bitten harder than others. For Denver Broncos wide receiver KJ Hamler, injuries have been hard to shake for the last couple of years dating back to his time at Penn State.
Coming into the NFL, Hamler wasn’t able to do pre-draft workouts due to a lingering hamstring injury that he dealt with in his final year at Happy Valley.
The hamstring issue continued to linger throughout his rookie season but Hamler was still able to play in the majority of the Broncos’ games in 2020.
Then, in the 2021 preseason, he showed what kind of electricity he can bring to the offense…
Drew Lock connects from LONG RANGE with KJ Hamler 😳
— B/R Gridiron (@brgridiron) August 14, 2021
(via @NFL)pic.twitter.com/IfuZZQegff
Unfortunately, the preseason highlights were about all we got to see of Hamler in 2022. He ended up getting injured in the third game of the season when he came down awkwardly trying to catch a pass against the New York Jets.
When Hamler came down, it looked bad, and it was worse.
All this time, we thought that he only had surgery to repair a torn ACL, but it sounds like the damage was worse than that.
Hamler not only had knee surgery after that injury, but he also had hip surgery.
K.J. Hamler’s hip popped out when he tore his ACL. He had to have surgery to fix that and the ACL.
— Zac Stevens (@ZacStevensDNVR) May 11, 2022
That, understandably, took Hamler to what he describes as a “dark” place.
"I was in a dark spot for a while going through that. Then I lost my grandmother two months after that. She was my best friend and I had to put her to rest. That was probably the toughest thing for me. Now that I’m back on the field and now that I’m around all the guys and I’m being able to do a little bit of what I was able to do before—it’s been uplifting my spirits. I won’t say that I’m out of that dark place, but I’m getting better. I can tell you that.KJ Hamler (via Broncos PR)"
Heading into his third NFL season, it really appeared as though the Denver Broncos could go into the 2022 NFL Draft looking to at least find some insurance for Hamler, if not a longer-term replacement for him.
Then videos began to surface of Hamler looking like he was way ahead of schedule from his injuries as he got in on the workouts with Russell Wilson and some of his other Broncos teammates.
Then the Broncos had some early work before the NFL Draft and Hamler participated in most of it. He may not yet be 100 percent healthy but he’s obviously getting extremely close.
That could end up being huge news for the Broncos because Hamler adds another dynamic to the offense that no one else on the team can.
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Come time for training camp in July, we’ll have to see where Hamler is at in terms of his overall recovery. If he’s already running close to full speed, it won’t be long before he’s out of the dark place and into the spotlight.