The Broncos roll into Monday night’s game against Cleveland feeling good but running on tired legs.
Denver’s playing for the 13th straight week in the regular season, with its bye week set to finally arrive on Tuesday. Take it back through training camp, and this team hasn’t actually had more than a couple of days off since they reported in late July.
In practicality, that means 19 straight weeks of work for Sean Payton’s team.
“It’s tough,” fourth-year outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper said of the Week 14 bye week, the latest possible in the NFL. “Going week-to-week with these games and stuff, your body really starts breaking down on you. But it’s just staying on it and stuff like that. But I’d be lying to you if I said it wasn’t tough.”
One player with very fresh legs who could jump into the mix as soon as Monday for the Broncos: Second-year linebacker Drew Sanders. He’s been activated off of injured reserve and now the challenge is figuring out just how to reintroduce him into a defensive game plan.
Just because Sanders is on the 53-man roster doesn’t necessarily mean he will be active on game day. If he is, the question becomes how much defensive and special teams work can the team give him as he gets reacclimated.
“We’ll see how the week goes,” Payton said Wednesday. “That’s always the big question: What’s the role, what’s the vision the first game back? But it’s been good to have him out there and he’s fully cleared and doing well.
“So we’ll see.”
Before Sanders’ injury this spring, general manager George Paton said he thought the 2023 third-round pick’s future was at outside linebacker.
The Broncos have received quality production from that position even since trading Baron Browning earlier this month. Nik Bonitto and Jonathon Cooper are enjoying the best seasons of their career while rookie Jonah Elliss and former UFL standout Dondrea Tillman have provided steady work as the second unit.
Still, Cooper said he was looking forward to seeing Sanders back on the field.
“Drew is a dynamic player, man,” Cooper said. “Super fast, super explosive, really gifted, man. He can bend that edge, too. He’s a hell of a football player through and through, honestly. It’s good for us and good for our defense as a whole to get a player like that back. We’ve just got to get him some reps, get him some plays, get him some game reps where he feels comfortable out there.
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“I can’t wait to see him out there. I know he’s going to ball.”
Sanders has been out since rupturing his Achilles tendon in April. He’s got three weeks of practice under his belt, but whenever he plays in a game, they will be the first live reps for him since January. That can be a two-sided coin. He’ll have fresher legs than just about anybody else on an NFL field, but at the same time, he won’t have the rhythm and tempo of regular-season experience that those other players have already felt.
“You can’t really get those (reps) back,” Cooper said. “Those physical reps, those game-speed reps, playing in the game, that experience — it’s really, really tough to replace when you’re on the sideline or even at practice. So we’re going to do everything we can to help him out and make sure he’s ready and he will be. He will be for sure.
“He’s a great football player, he picks it up fast and he’ll be just fine.”
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