ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Last year, the start of the NFL season was a nightmare for K.J. Hamler.
His ACL was torn. His hip had popped out. And his grandma — who was his “rock” — passed away.
“I’ve been in a dark spot for a while now,” Hamler said on Wednesday, opening up about his past nine months. “Just going through that and I lost my grandmother, like two months after that, and she was like my best friend, had to put her to rest. So that was probably the toughest thing for me.”
On Sept. 26, against the Jets in Week 3, the former second-round pick’s season ended on a single play. Not only did Hamler have to have surgery to repair his ACL, he had to have surgery to fix his hip.
“This wasn’t just ACL. I had a hip repair too. It was kind of a double-whammy,” Hamler explained. “That was probably the hardest part, you got to be careful because of the hip and then the knee and it’s all on the same side.”
But Hamler is beginning to see the light after such a dark time in his life.
“Now that I’m back on the field and around all the guys, just being out there and being able to do a little bit of what I was able to do before, it’s been uplifting my spirits,” Hamler stated. “I’m not going to say I’m out of that dark place, but I’m getting better. I’ll tell you that.”
“Playing ball again” is the medicine that will get him out of his dark place entirely. Fortunately for Hamler and the Broncos, his recovery is “well-ahead of schedule.”
“The fact that I’m out there when I’m not even supposed to be out there [is impressive],” Hamler said. “I’m out there early doing a lot of stuff that people didn’t expect me to do, it tells you how hard I work. I work my butt off a lot just to get back ready.”
No one agrees with Hamler more than George Paton.
“I couldn’t be [more] impressed with anyone in our building than K.J. Hamler,” Paton said at his pre-draft press conference in April. “Significant injury and no one fights, no one works, no one has more passion… I mean, I know he’s doing well, I know his surgery went well. But I saw him out there and [it’s] very impressive.”
With the Broncos’ offseason training program underway, Hamler isn’t just on the field, he’s running routes — at what appears to be full-speed — and catching passes from Russell Wilson.
“I’m in a good spot,” Hamler said confidently. “Some days [the trainers] got to ramp me down a little bit and tell me to calm down so nothing don’t flare up. Now, I’m just playing it smart and progressing everyday.”
Seven months after his devastating injury, the 178-pound speedster was hitting 19 and 20 miles per hour on the field. Running 25-yard outs now feels normal to him.
With just over two months until the start of training camp, and four months until the start of the regular season, Hamler is hopeful that he’ll fully be back for both major milestones.
As for his speed? Well, Hamler isn’t worried about that one bit.
“My speed ain’t going nowhere. I should be faster,” Hamler stated without a doubt.
Hamler plans to use that speed — believed to be in the 4.2s — to not only bring a deep threat to the Broncos’ offense, but to give Russell Wilson Denver’s version of Tyler Lockett.
“I kind of see myself playing that Tyler Lockett role this year,” Hamler said.
There are plenty of similarities between the two speedsters. Both were Day 2 picks — Hamler in the second round and Lockett in the third. Lockett checks in at 5-foot-10, 182 pounds, with Hamler clocking in at 5-foot-9, 178 pounds.
But Lockett — with help from his seven years with Wilson in Seattle — has the accolades that Hamler is looking for, including three All-Pros.
In fact, in Lockett’s first season with Wilson, in 2015, he had 51 receptions for 664 yards and six touchdowns, numbers Hamler hasn’t approached in his two years in the NFL.
In the past three seasons, Lockett has topped 1,000 yards every year. In the previous four seasons, he has combined for 4,251 receiving yards, 312 receptions and 36 receiving touchdowns.
“I feel like my biggest role is being a deep threat, you know, something like Tyler was,” Hamler said. “Me and Russ have to have those talks as well. Me and the coaches have to have those talks as well. Anything I can do to produce to give this team a winning chance, I’ll do it. It don’t matter.”
In order to be the next Lockett for Wilson, Hamler has spoken to Tyler himself. Lockett’s advice to the third-year receiver was to always “be in [Wilson’s ear].”
“Always ask him questions. Just basically be a sponge and absorb stuff because Russ wants stuff very specific — ‘I want it in this spot at this time, this area,’ so just picking his brain,” Hamler explained. “Just trying to be a sponge and just listen to him.”
Despite not one, but two devastating injuries, Hamler has flown through his recovery process. He plans to bring that same blazing speed to the field and Russell Wilson by Week 1.
