The Denver Broncos had to play on Sunday against the Las Vegas Raiders without one of their best players on the entire roster -- defensive lineman Zach Allen. Allen, a free agent acquisition in 2023, has been an absolute stud since coming to Denver and has really evolved as a player over the years. He's playing his best football in 2024.
Unfortunately, Allen suffered a "heel" injury in practice on Friday and was spotted in Las Vegas in a walking boot on his right foot.
Zach Allen in a walking boot pic.twitter.com/KtYcHHpx1v
— Romi Bean (@Romi_Bean) November 24, 2024
The fact that Allen traveled to the game is probably a positive sign as it is, but Sean Payton -- who mostly declines to give any and all injury updates -- provided at least a little bit of an optimistic update on Allen's status going forward.
Sean Payton says Broncos DL Zach Allen "should be fine"
“We should be fine there. I’m not going to hit any injuries today. We should be fine there.”
- Broncos HC Sean Payton on Zach Allen (via team PR)
It's not much, but it's at least something, right?
Allen has been a crucial piece of Denver's defensive success this season. Seeing him in a boot on the field in Las Vegas doesn't exactlly inspire confidence that Allen is going to be ready to play in Monday night's matchup against the Cleveland Browns, but crazier things have happened.
And Payton's update here is still fairly vague, so there's no guarantee that him saying "we should be fine there" is indicative that Allen won't miss any games. He might just be saying that it's not season-ending, or something like that.
Regardless, the Broncos will have to be ready to pick up the slack a bit better than we saw early against the Las Vegas Raiders. The pass rush was not getting home in the first half and the defensive front gave up too many big chunk plays on the ground against Vegas. They picked things up in the second half, however, and they'll be expected to pick up where they left off against Cleveland.
With 21 QB hits so far this season, Allen is on pace to easily break his career-best of 24. He's already got 5.0 sacks and his career-high in that category is 5.5. He's already set a career-high with 12 tackles for loss and 28 pressures.
The Broncos don't play until Monday so their practice schedule will be different against the Browns this week. With that in mind, injury updates can probably be expected to be a day delayed unless Denver does something drastic like putting Allen on short-term IR.
There might be some validity to holding him out against the Browns, just to be cautious. The Broncos can't take Cleveland lightly, but they are probably still good enough in the defensive trenches to win that game without Zach Allen, and if Allen misses the game against Cleveland, he'd be getting three full weeks of rest including the Vegas game, Cleveland game, and Denver's bye week in Week 14.