Just before the Broncos broke minicamp for summer break in mid-June, Tim Patrick thought about a potential reunion tour and couldn’t help but smile.
“It would be amazing, honestly,” the Denver wide receiver said. “I think we’ve got two or three games together. It’s something that we all want. That’s the whole point of asking KJ (Hamler) to live with us, to make sure this season there’s no excuses.”
The “we” Patrick referred to: Himself and fellow Broncos wide receivers Hamler, Jerry Jeudy and Courtland Sutton. Patrick’s memory was spot on. The quartet all had been part of the organization since the 2020 draft, when the club used its first two picks on Jeudy and Hamler. They joined Sutton coming off a breakout 2019 season and Patrick working his way from undrafted free agent to special teams standout to reliable receiver.
Since then, the Broncos have played 50 regular-season games. Those four receivers have never played a full one together. Half of Week 2 in 2020 before Sutton tore his ACL. Then part of the 2021 opener before Jeudy injured his ankle. By the time Jeudy returned, Hamler was out with knee and hip injuries. Then Patrick missed all of 2022 with an ACL injury suffered last August.
This summer, visions of the quartet back on the field together catching passes from Russell Wilson on plays designed by Sean Payton seemed within reach.
Instead, the calendar has yet to flip to September and, for the moment, Sutton is the only one standing.
The latest injury came Thursday to Jeudy, who took an end-around during a joint practice with the Los Angeles Rams and pulled up along the sideline, grabbing at his right hamstring. He had to be carted off the field to the locker room.
Head coach Sean Payton said after practice he was hopeful the injury wouldn’t keep Jeudy out “long term” and, while the subsequent news could have been worse, a source told The Post that Jeudy is expected to miss several weeks.
Dr. Kenton Fibel, a primary care sports medicine specialist at Cedars-Sinai Kerlan Jobe Institute in Los Angeles, told The Post that Grade 1 hamstring strains can take a week or two to recover from, Grade 2 strains tend to take four weeks or so and Grade 3 injuries six weeks or more.
“It can be a little bit different, different bodies have different healing capacities, so that’s why it’s difficult to have exact, precise timelines for these,” Dr. Fibel said.
If Jeudy falls roughly in the middle of that category, it makes for a bit of a gray area going forward for the Broncos. They are 17 days out from their season opener against Las Vegas. If Denver thinks Jeudy can get back somewhere within the first two or maybe even three weeks, it could carry him on the 53-man roster and hope the recovery goes quickly.
If not, however, they could put him on injured reserve after Aug. 30 when roster is set at 53, free up a roster spot and then designate him to return as early as Week 5 against the New York Jets. NFL teams can designate up to eight players to return from injured reserve over the course of the regular season, but only if they are placed on the list after the initial roster cutdown on Aug. 29.
The risk of not placing Jeudy on injured reserve to start the year is that his rehab takes longer than hoped, he misses four games anyway and takes up a roster spot while doing so. The risk of returning him to play too early, of course, is an aggravation to the muscle that costs him a bigger chunk of the season.
The temptation is to just carry Jeudy even if he might push toward the four-week mark because of his talent and play-making ability. Already without Patrick, Hamler and second-year man Jalen Virgil (ACL tear), the Broncos might figure that roster spot is worth occupying if it means getting him back even a week early.
Depending on how Payton and general manager George Paton view their depth at other positions, the Broncos could opt to carry an extra receiver at the start of the regular season — seven instead of six or six instead of five — if they want to avoid an IR placement for Jeudy.
At the same time, Jeudy’s not the only player with a return target around the season opener. Denver has several others, including nickel K’Waun Williams (ankle), safety P.J. Locke (foot/ankle), cornerback Riley Moss (core) and defensive lineman Mike Purcell (knee), who may or may not be ready for the Broncos’ opener. How many question marks can the team carry into its first game week?
One certainty is the Broncos’ wide receiver depth will again be tested and Sutton will have to carry the load.
“”Those are two really big hits,” receiver Lil’Jordan Humphrey told The Post regrading Jeudy and Patrick. “We just gotta keep going, and it’s the next man is up. We just gotta keep working, try to produce and wait for Jeudy to come back so we can really get going.”
Rookie Marvin Mims Jr. has ramped up from hamstring issues of his own and could well find himself on or near the top line at this point. Brandon Johnson is back from an ankle injury and will figure prominently in the Broncos’ plans, too.
Marquez Callaway turned in the best year of his career in 2021 when he caught 46 passes for 598 yards for Payton’s Saints. He received that workload because of a rash of injuries.
“We had a couple guys go down and I had to step up, so I think that was the biggest thing that season and that year,” he said earlier this month. “Hopefully (I can) do the same this year.”
Somebody will have to. And it will be of particular importance considering the Broncos’ schedule at the beginning of the season. They open with home games against Las Vegas and Washington before traveling to Miami and Chicago.
Then comes a grueling stretch that features Aaron Rodgers’ New York Jets and two meetings with Kansas City in a 17-day span around a home game with the Packers and a Nov. 13 Monday Night Football date at Buffalo after the bye week.
In other words: A fast start is critical for Denver, and opening the season without Jeudy will only make achieving that a notch more difficult.
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