DNVR Exclusive: Broncos expected to get a big boost to their offensive line against the Steelers

DENVER — Dalton Risner missed his first-career NFL game on Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens due to an ankle injury he suffered in Week 3.

Risner won’t miss a second-straight game.

“I’ll be back, man,” the Broncos’ starting left guard told DNVR on Tuesday, stating he’ll play against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday.

Denver’s former second-round pick was close to playing against the Ravens and continuing his streak of starting every game of his career. But, according to Vic Fangio, he just wasn’t close enough.

In fact, Risner told DNVR it took “everything” from the people around him to keep him from playing against Baltimore.

“I just kind of had to make a decision to be smart. I’ve never really been a smart guy when it comes to dealing with injuries,” he said about the difficult decision to not play. “I played 35 games in a row for the Broncos, battled through a lot of injuries and pain, but this kind of came to the point in my career where I felt like, and all the professionals around me felt like, it was a good chance I could get injured again and I needed that extra—you know, not just six days before I played, but, you know, 13 days before I played again in a full game and I think it was the right decision.”

After missing the Wednesday and Thursday practices leading up to the Ravens game, there was hope Risner would be able to play when he returned to practice on Friday. But after practice the decision was made to let him rest for one more week.

“I’m always going to tell people I’m ready, unless you break my bone or do something to where I can’t walk or can’t use my hands, whatever it may be. I’m always going to feel like I’m ready to play,” Risner said, speaking as a true offensive lineman. “But when you have professionals at your facility, especially in the medical world, tell you that their advice is to not play, that they think you could hurt it worse or even just re-injure it the same way and be out for another four weeks or end up doing something really bad and having to get surgery, it’s kind of hard to go against that.”

“And then when you have the support of your your coaches and your facility and the upstairs and the [front] office, just kind of telling you ‘Hey, it’s one game. We don’t want to make it a four-game deal or rest of the season deal. It’s a 17-game season.’ You just kind of have to listen to that. So that’s what I did,” Risner continued, explaining how he was convinced to miss his first NFL game. “I feel like I made the grown-up decision. It was painful not to play, but now I’m excited to get on the road and go kick some butt this weekend.”

On the sideline for the first time in his NFL career, Risner became a coach to his replacement, rookie Quinn Meinerz. The two went over all of Dalton’s notes throughout the week and Dalton was dialed in like a coach on the sideline.

“I was extremely hard,” Risner said about watching the game instead of playing in it. “I mean being a guy that’s played 35 games in a row, and takes a lot of pride in being an NFL football player and being a Denver Bronco, it’s hard to watch… As you can imagine I was very locked into what we were doing.”

Two weeks after the initial injury, the 6-foot-5, 312-pound guard is feeling “really good.”

“Have a couple of days of practice coming up before we head out to Pittsburgh. And I’m praying that those go well,” Risner stated. “But I should be able to play like Vic Fangio said. That’s my goal.”

Risner’s return comes at a crucial time for the Broncos as they try to avoid having their first loss of the season snowball into a losing streak.

“Football is a game of adversity,” he said, discussing how the team needs to bounce back. “How are you going to react? How are you going to react to the adversity that your dealt? You know, we had a lot of injuries. It’s not an excuse. Our quarterback went out. Those are things that happen with the game of football. They’re not excuses because everyone we have on our football team, like Vic Fangio said, we’re good enough to win.”

“We know that we fell short,” Risner continued. “Best thing we can do is accept the loss for what it was, get better from it, and move forward, and make sure that we fight through adversity this week to beat the Steelers.”

Tune in to Wednesday’s DNVR Broncos Podcast for the entire exclusive interview with Dalton, where he opens up about his injury, his incredible philanthropic work and his partnership with the American Cancer Society.