Backs already against the wall, Broncos get bad news

[Elite_video_player id=”36″]

Wednesday was not a good day for Denver Broncos fans scouring the web and social media as they were slowly bombarded with bad injury news.

In the midst of a fight for their postseason lives, the Broncos might be without two offensive starters as the head into Jacksonville this weekend.

“[Trevor Siemian] has a foot sprain. We have him in a boot right now,” explained head coach Gary Kubiak after Wednesday’s practice. “He did not come over [to practice] today. Paxton [Lynch] and Austin [Davis] took all the reps. He’ll be day-to-day.”

A shocking piece of news with the starting quarterback’s status suddenly in danger but the bad news didn’t end there. Even worse news came down the pipe regarding the Broncos starting fullback.

“Andy Janovich. Andy had surgery yesterday on his ankle,” said Kubiak. “He’ll be placed on [injured reserve] at some point probably later in the week. Unfortunately, we lost him. He’s a good player and a good kid. He has a bright future. That’s what we’re dealing with right now.”

Kubiak went on to explain the injury and how Janovich came to suffer this season-ending incident.

“[It happened] on the first play of the game,” explained the head coach. “He played the whole game, too. He struggled throughout the course of the game. We knew he was struggling. He said he was fine. He’s a really tough kid. It happened on the screen, the first play of the game when he caught the ball. He got rolled up on and battled through the game. The next morning, we went to take a look, and we knew we had an issue. It was something that needed to be fixed. I don’t know how to tell you exactly what it was. I have to let [Broncos head athletic trainer Steve] ‘Greek’ [Antonopulos] do that.”

The Siemian injury was found out post-game as well, as he too aggravated his foot while battling it out against Kansas City.

“It’s just something where he came out of the game very sore on Monday morning,” explained Kubiak. “It swelled up on him. ‘Greek’ thought it was best to put him in a boot here for a few days. He went in a boot yesterday. We left him in here today. We’ll see. It’s a day-to-day process. We’ll see how much ground we make up.”

Though he wasn’t certain, the Broncos head coach estimates Siemian got injured during overtime.

“It would be hard for me to tell you. It was in overtime,” confirmed Kubiak. “I think it was the sack right before the field goal that we kicked to take the lead in our first possession of overtime. He did actually play another five or six plays on the next possession. I don’t know which play it was.”

The sack came on a Tamba Hali bullrush that pushed Russell Okung right into Siemian. As Siemian tried to scramble out of the hit, his foot got tangled with left tackle Russ Okung’s foot, and it appears that’s how he suffered the injury.

This injury is particularly frustrating for Denver as Siemian was coming off his most impressive performance Sunday night, a game in which he showed superb skill in both passing it deep and making plays with his feet. His footwork and athletic lower-body ability are essential in such plays, particularly with a shaky offensive line that’s forced Siemian to move around in the pocket quite a bit.

“Again, that’s something that we can’t do much about,” said offensive coordinator Rick Dennison. “Trevor obviously has progressed. He did some things that we asked him to do. He took a step up and make those plays that he needed to. He got out of the pocket a couple of times, which he did early in the year and kind of stopped doing. We’ll deal with that as we deal with it. We have a lot of guys to train here. There will be 21 of them suited up, maybe 22, you never know. Those are the guys we’re training.”

While Siemian’s injury can be dealt with and he hopefully can return to full form and playing the way he did in the second half against the Chiefs, the Janovich injury is more of a blow.

“Juwan works there and obviously [TE’s] Virgil [Green] and A.J. [Derby] can play there, too,” said Kubiak about potential replacements for the fullback position. “We’ll move some guys up, but we’ll miss him. When that kid was healthy and playing well, it was really a boost for our football team. We’ll miss him. He has a bright future. He’ll be fine. He’ll get healthy.”

Along with Siemian and Janovich, the Broncos practiced Wednesday without a few other players, almost all on offense. Russell Okung and Matt Paradis saw planned rest days while Bennie Fowler and Casey Kreiter were held out.

Much like it was last year, this Broncos team’s resilience will be tested in the face of injuries as well. A struggling offensive group now will have to make up for two key losses throughout the practice week and possibly a different starter behind center.

Just another week in the Gary Kubiak era in Denver.