The Broncos are off to yet another brutal start to training camp on the injury front.
Denver inside linebacker Jonas Griffith tore his left ACL in practice Tuesday and will miss the entire season, coach Sean Payton confirmed after practice Thursday.
“It’s unfortunate because he was one of those guys that was rehabbing, too, and I saw him a lot (this offseason),” Payton said. “We’re trying to keep his spirits up.”
Griffith was working through a special teams drill and went to the ground when he stepped on a teammate’s foot. He walked off the field with help from training staff, but medical imaging showed the season-ending injury.
“Jonas is a big part of our team,” fellow inside linebacker Alex Singleton said Thursday. “It sucks losing a guy like that. You know how hard he works, everything he puts out there and then to go back-to-back on injuries, it just sucks.”
The 6-foot-4, 250-pound inside linebacker entered training camp ecstatic to be healthy again after missing the final nine games of the 2022 season with a broken bone at the top of his foot.
“It was definitely frustrating, but the thing for me is it taught me a lot,” Griffith told The Post in June. “It taught me how to deal with adversity — it was my first real injury and missed time throughout my career, high school, college and into the NFL. It taught me to appreciate the game and the process of practicing and to enjoy it.
“That’s what I’m doing now is just enjoying being out there with the guys.”
Now, though, he’s got another round of adversity to deal with.
Denver signed undrafted UNLV linebacker Austin Ajiake and he was in camp for the Broncos’ closed-to-the-public practice Thursday.
If there’s a position this roster has the ability to absorb an injury to, it might just be inside linebacker. The Broncos return Alex Singleton and Josey Jewell and drafted Drew Sanders in the third round this spring. Justin Strnad has been a steady special teams contributor and fill-in over the course of his career.
Even still, losing Griffith is a blow to Denver’s defense and to the overall quality depth of the roster. He might have forced coordinator Vance Joseph into a three-man rotation, considering he was a starter for the first half of the 2022 season and looked to be off to a fast start in training camp.
It could well expedite the timeline on which the Broncos hope to get production from Sanders, who is trying to overcome the rookie learning curve.
“There’s some nuances because he’s playing a little bit more off the ball — he played both in college,” Payton said. “He’s a quick study. I think he’s doing well. He’s handled the install well. Now, there’s plays in practice where there will be an alignment error or maybe a leverage error, but he’ll get it cleaned up.”
Said Singleton of Sanders, “The learning curve is tough in the NFL. But, I mean, he’s a freak. He’s got the size, he’s strong, he’s fast, he’s physical. It just takes time.”
Griffith’s injury Tuesday turned out to be the second season-ender in as many days, as it followed wide receiver Tim Patrick’s torn Achilles tendon on Monday during a 7-on-7 drill.
“I don’t think it’s out of the ordinary, honestly,” Payton said. “I can’t speak for the past, but in training camp you get a few of these. Hopefully it won’t be as many as other teams, but we look closely at everything we do leading up to drills and in practice. One was a freak injury and the other one happened on a special teams injury where he stepped on a foot.”
RB Williams on track to play in preseason: Payton said Thursday that running back Javonte Williams (knee) will get preseason snaps as he works back from an ACL injury suffered in October.
“It may be we wait until Week 2,” Payton said. “We haven’t gone through the outline of snaps yet, but I like how he’s progressed.”
