ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — There are two kinds of injuries to a football team.
There are the football-related setbacks such as torn ACLs, broken bones, sore ribs and, most unfortunately, concussions. These are chalked up as the cost of doing business. A business that is a contact, sometimes physically violent sport.
There isn’t a whole lot that can be done preventatively, except for maybe choosing to play baseball, soccer or just about any other spot.
The second type of common football injury is called the soft-tissue ailment. Strained or pulled hamstrings, quads, groins and calves.
These are the type of injuries that drive coaches crazy because there is a sense they can be prevented. Broncos head coach Vic Fangio was bit perturbed by the rash of soft-tissue injuries that have beset his team and caused him to lighten up on practice Monday.
“Already this year, practicing less than we practiced a year ago at this time, we have more than we had the entire season last year,’’ Fangio said in a Zoom media conference call. “I was not expecting that. I think there were some flaws in the way we (the league and players union) set up the acclimation period along with the other stuff.’’
Missing practice Monday because of soft-tissue injuries for the first time were defensive tackle Mike Purcell, receiver Tim Patrick, cornerback De’Vante Bausby and safety Alijah Holder. They joined previously soft-tissue hobbled linebacker Todd Davis, receivers Juwann Winfree and KJ Hamler, and cornerback Michael Ojemudia.
That’s 10 percent of the Broncos’ 80-man roster. That may be more than Fangio expected, but he should have expected some. With no offseason program and a delayed start to full-team training camp because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there simply wasn’t enough to properly train the leg muscles for the dramatic stops and starts that football requires. And the Broncos' highly-regarded training and medical staff wasn't around to help oversee the players' fitness programs.
Fangio backed off from having a full-padded practice Monday and shortened it by a few minutes.
“It doesn’t do anybody any good to whine about it now,’’ Fangio said. “We just have to adjust and improvise and react to it, which we did. Today we altered practice. That wasn’t the planned practice that we had today. That was a practice we were going to do later in the week. We did it today instead. We’ll see how we came out of that. What we exactly do tomorrow will be a product of what I think we need to do. I did know we were going to have to do some adjusting as we go. Today was an example of that.”
