Blaming Loren Landow for what ailed the post-PFM Broncos was, pun intended, always a bit of a stretch.
And, yeah, we saw the numbers. Denver led the NFL last fall with 23 players on injured reserve, according to Spotrac.com, while the Broncos’ $67.1 million in cap money on IR ranked third behind Tennessee ($104.7 million) and Arizona ($79.6 million). It was the third straight year in which the franchise ranked among the NFL’s top five squads in one, or both, negative superlatives.
The Walton-Penners unofficially put Landow, the Broncos’ head strength and conditioning coach since March 2018, on notice last December following the Christmas Day Massacre/Patrick Star Debacle. Sean Payton came aboard as the new face of the franchise about five weeks after that, bringing in his own crew. Landow, no shock, quietly turned in his key card.
Fast forward six months, and the new band is playing the same, sad little tune. With P.J. Locke joining the party, only two NFL franchises as of 4 p.m. Tuesday sported a longer injury list than the Broncos’ 15, per CBS Sports.com. Seattle listed 19; Cleveland 17.
A month until the regular season, and the Broncos already top the NFL, per Spotrac, in salary cap dollars stuck on injured reserve.
The season-ending losses of Tim Patrick (ACL) and Jonas Griffith (also ACL) make the Broncos the preseason leaders with $12.011 million on the shelf. That’s twice as many cap dollars as the Jets, with six players on IR worth $6.67 million.
And, yes, Patrick’s $11.07 million cap hit accounts for most of that chunk. So, yeah, some context helps.
But what about Riley Moss’ sports hernia/core muscle surgery, which sidelined him for at least a month?
Or kicker Elliott Fry, waived Tuesday after suffering a lower body injury just as Broncos Country was learning to loathe him less than Brett “Yips” Maher?
Or Mike McGlinchey’s knee?
Or Justin Simmons’ groin?
Landow, to the best of everybody’s knowledge, is no longer part of the equation in Dove Valley. Yet the math still hurts.
“Yeah, but I would say this, though,” Payton countered after Tuesday’s practice, “I think the idea that we’ve had a run (of injuries), I think, (that’s) exaggerated.”
Perhaps. But can we all agree, at long last, to take Landow off the hook?
“If you look around the league — we get the reports,” Payton continued. “Obviously, we had a tough one early with Tim (Patrick). And then the following day or two, we had an ACL (Griffith). And outside of that — you know, (there was) a sports hernia (with Riley Moss). I think (the) guys are handling practice well.”
Look, injuries are one of those training camp inevitabilities, like offensive line brawls. And they’re a necessary evil for a preseason full of real, honest-to-goodness contact.
Philosophically, Camp Sean is a 200% improvement over Nathaniel Hackett’s Club Med from a year ago. Silicon Valley has yet to perfect a virtual reality that replicates the brutality and physicality of the real thing. The only way to truly simulate, and to improve, when it comes to blocking and tackling is by actually blocking and tackling.
If knocking off the rust means tweaking a knee, so be it. It’s not a contact sport. It’s a collision sport. You don’t get to have it both ways.
That said, Landow always felt a little too convenient as a fall guy. He was already world-renowned when the Broncos brought him on board five years ago, having worked with athletes in the NFL, MLB, NHL, WNBA and the Olympics. Clients who’ve worked with him, by and large, rave about the guy.
Yet if the end game was player availability, his late-stage results at Dove Valley were, to be fair, a bit mixed. At the end of the ’21 season, Denver was tied for fourth in players on the IR (16) and fourth in IR cap dollars ($41.99 million). In ’20, they were fifth (14 players) and third ($57.3 million), respectively.
Meanwhile, the Broncos had to jettison draft pick after draft pick to try and solve quarterback (Russell Wilson) and coach (Payton) immediately, leaving them with a roster that’s got all the depth of a kiddie pool. Knee injuries sting a lot more when you’re going from Plan A to Plan D, while Plans B and C play for the Seahawks.
Ergo, a sensitive topic remains — well, still sensitive. When a reporter a few weeks back suggested the Broncos might be “snake-bitten” on the injury front after Patrick and Griffith went down in such quick fashion, Payton bristled.
“I don’t think it’s out of the ordinary, honestly,” the coach said Aug. 3. “I can’t speak (on) the past, but in training camp, you get a few of these. Hopefully, you don’t get as many as other teams.
“But we look closely at everything we do leading up to the drills in practice. One (Patrick) was a fluke injury and the other happened on a special teams play where (Griffith) stepped on a foot. So, no, I don’t (think we’re snake-bit).”
The snakes might disagree. And from under the bus where they’d thrown him, off in the distance, you could almost hear Landow chuckling.
