ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Sometimes, when an NFL player knows that an injury will end his season, he doesn’t stay around his teammates. He’ll do his rehab work, but will do so on his own time, sometimes at the facility when active players are practicing or in meetings, or sometimes away from team headquarters altogether.
That wasn’t what Josey Jewell did after he tore his pectoral muscle at Jacksonville in Week 2 of the 2021 season.
Not only was Jewell still around, he would sometimes be seen at practice, working out with teammates who had short-term injuries on the side field. Despite the season-concluding prognosis and the expiring contract beyond that, Jewell was anything but out of sight and out of mind.
So, when it came time for the Broncos to choose which of their inside linebackers with expiring contracts would return, the nod went to Jewell, whose steady improvement over his career appeared to be elevating him to top-shelf status early last season before the injury.
“It meant a lot,” Jewell said. “I wanted to help as much as I could after the injury.
“I’m glad I stayed around for almost every practice, all those games, helping guys out, staying around the team — and really staying around the guys. That was the biggest thing, just to keep on getting to know the guys on the team, and whether the coaches left or not, I just wanted to keep on getting to know everybody.”
Vic Fangio and most of his staff did leave; they were dismissed after the 7-10 finish. But the hiring of defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero offered a lifeboat; his scheme shares many common traits with that of Fangio, with whom he worked on Jim Harbaugh’s San Francisco staff from 2011 through 2014.
“It’s just building on the knowledge that you already had of the game,” Jewell said. “It’s not a huge, huge change of just totally changing the script on you. You can definitely feel more comfortable at the start of it. You still have to stay in the playbook; you’ve still got to watch film and know certain checks and things like that.”
Still, it helps with younger, newer teammates such as free-agent pickup Alex Singleton and Jonas Griffith, who joined the Broncos as a special-teams contributor via a roster-deadline-day trade last August.
Even Jewell’s time on injured reserve helped the communication with Griffith and his fellow returning defensive players, because the process of building cohesion in that aspect of game play doesn’t just happen on the field.
“The communication gets even better — whether you’re just screwing around at the hotel or on the bus, or doing stuff — all of the communication, all of the talk on and off the field adds up,” Jewell said.
With Griffith in particular, the effect is pronounced. Injuries to some linebackers and struggles of others had Griffith in the starting lineup by the end of the doomed 2021 season, and Jewell can see the impact on his progress.
“The guy is good. He has a lot of talent. The guy can run — smart kid,” Jewell said. “He’s come a long way, especially from last year. From the beginning of it when he was just playing special teams and then he came into a defensive role playing linebacker, and now communicating with me out there with other guys. It really shows his football I.Q. really increasing.”
And if anyone knows about football I.Q., it’s Jewell, who knows that even a season-ending injury doesn’t mean a halt to one’s progress.
“This is probably the most fun I’ve had in the last four years playing,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed it, and I can’t wait to see where it goes.”
