6 most shocking storylines for the Denver Broncos in 2023

2. Javonte Williams makes miraculous comeback from knee injury

Broncos running back Javonte Williams is no stranger to adversity. The third back out of North Carolina suffered a tragic knee injury at the start of the 2022 season in which he tore multiple ligaments including his ACL, PCL, and LCL. In what should have been a very long recovery, Williams attacked his rehab process like no other and made substantial progress while doing so.

Initially, Williams was given a timetable of 12-18 months to make a full recovery but instead, he beat the timetable by several months. The best part is, just 10 months after suffering the injury, Williams is already playing at an extremely high level over his last two games when several athletes would require nearly two years just to get back into the sport with an injury of that seriousness. His comeback is by far one of the most remarkable injury recoveries in NFL history and is reasonably considered a miracle.

3. Jonathon Cooper earns starting role, veteran pass rushers flop

Entering the offseason program, the popular belief and expectation was that veteran edge rushers Randy Gregory and Frank Clark would be the starting outside linebackers in Denver considering the contracts they were signed to by the front office. However, everything changed quickly at the start of training camp.

Despite making significantly more money, veterans Randy Gregory and Frank Clark were completely outperformed by pass rushers Nik Bonitto and Jonathon Cooper throughout training camp, preseason, and especially the regular season. Cooper went on to earn a starting role over Clark who was on a $6.5M contract and Bonitto went on to steal away the starting job from Gregory just three weeks into the season. Just the way everyone drew it up during the offseason, right?