ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The Broncos’ most prized free agent this offseason has been relatively invisible.
Through the first 12 games of Ja’Wuan James’ career with the Broncos, the 6-foot-6, 312-pound tackle has played in two games, unable to make it to the second half in either contest.
In fact, the second-highest paid right tackle in the NFL has played in 32 total snaps on the season, missing over 95 percent of the offensive snaps due to injury.
Ten plays into his season, James injured his knee against the Raiders, an injury that held him out until Week 8. Then, in his first game back, James played in the team’s first 22 snaps against the Colts before re-aggravating his initial injury.
Since James has slowly worked his way back to practice, but still remained on the sidelines on game day.
Last week, Vic Fangio explained James’ situation more, detailing how the former first-round pick was physically cleared, but not emotionally and mentally ready to play. At that point, Vic appeared to be fine with what was going on.
That changed on Monday following James’ 10th missed game of the season.
When asked if there was a frustration level amongst Fangio and Mike Munchak in regard to James, Fangio began his response with the affirmative “Yeah.”
The head coach then publicly made his expectations for James crystal clear.
“We expect him to be ready to play this week,” Fangio stated.
This was a shift from Vic. In previous weeks, Fangio’s maintained a wait-and-see approach surrounding James throughout the week, especially early in the week. But not on Monday. Vic laid out a clear expectation for his right tackle.
A potential reason for Fangio’s changed approach is James has given all indications on the practice field that he’s ready to go. Leading up to the Bills’ game in Week 12, James practiced every single day but was listed as limited for all three of the team’s practices. He did not play in the game.
Last week, however, James was a full participant in each of the team’s practices. But despite that, and being medically cleared, James did not play on Sunday in the team’s win over the Chargers.
With James bringing home an average salary of $12.75 million, and $17 million in cash this year alone, Fangio doesn’t want to see him on the bench any longer. He made that very clear on Monday that shouldn’t continue another week.
If Fangio’s expectations come to fruition, James will still see the bench at points in the game.
“If he’s playing, he’s not going to play the entire game,” Fangio stated. “That would be unrealistic to expect him to go play 60-70 plays. So they’ll be some type of in and out there.”
Fangio didn’t fully commit to James starting, but did say he would “start out” at right tackle if he played.
When James returned to the lineup in Week 8, Fangio stated the Broncos would rotate he, Elijah Wilkinson and Garett Bolles at the two tackle spots throughout the game. That plan had yet to take effect by the time James went down in the second quarter.
With James not expected to play the full game against the Texans, a similar rotation could very well be in place if Ja’Wuan is good to go.
Fangio’s been an advocate in James’ corner for much of the season. But after missing his 10th game of the season, despite practicing the entire week leading up to the game, Vic isn’t giving his highest-paid offensive lineman a hall pass for Denver’s 13th game of the season.
