Report: Broncos Part Ways With Strength Coach Loren Landow
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The Denver Broncos have parted ways with strength and conditioning coach Loren Landow, according to 9NEWS' Mike Klis. Landow, a renowned expert in his field, joined the Broncos in 2018.
"Broncos head strength and conditioning coach Loren Landow has informed several players and his staff he and the team are parting ways, a source told 9NEWS."
The season before Landow arrived, the Broncos ranked near the bottom in the NFL when it came to unique injuries that caused a player to miss a game. Under the previous strength and conditioning coach, Luke Richesson, the Broncos were one of the healthier NFL teams.
The ensuing five years under Landow, however, saw one injury calamity after another befall the Broncos. Mile High Huddle's Erick Trickel did a case study on the Broncos' injury woes under Landow, and the results were heinous.
In 2018, the Broncos were in the top 10 for most unique injuries that caused a player to miss a game. Then in 2019, they were top seven and have been in the top five every year since 2020. So the Broncos were a relatively healthy team, as in not dealing with many unique injuries, to becoming one of the worst.
While ligament tears and others can be freak injuries, the number of soft tissue ailments also increased for the Broncos after the switch was made to Landow in 2018. Compared to the number of soft tissue injuries from 2014-17, they rose by nearly 30% in the 2018-2021 seasons.
The 2022 season wasn't included in Trickel's study, because, at the time, the campaign was still ongoing, but it was easily on track to meet the numbers from 2018-21. When it's one year of misfortune, one could chalk Denver's injury woes up to the vagaries of playing a violent, physical game like football.
When those injury depredations span a half-decade, though, and hamstring a team's ability to compete, it becomes incumbent on the brass to recognize it and make the changes necessary to rectify it. The Broncos' comedy of injuries last season, alone, were enough to jeopardize Landow's job.
On the back of four preceding terrible seasons wherein the Broncos were one of the most snake-bitten teams in the league, eventually, you've got to call a spade a spade, and look for other experts in the field. The irony is, as Klis writes, Landow is well-respected in his field, with many Colorado athletes hiring him to train them during the offseason.
Landow's approach simply didn't work on a collective, team level. Why it didn't pan out is impossible to say, as NFL teams guard the secrets of their strength and conditioning and sports science programs zealously. The proof was in the proverbial pudding in Denver, though.
Sean Payton deserves praise for recognizing the need to shake up the strength and conditioning program, which, one can only assume, will also extend to the Broncos' nutritional and other sports science endeavors.
Happy trails to Landow. If I were the Broncos, I'd be on the phone to see what it would take to get Richesson back into the fold. Rumor has it, he returned to Denver after resigning from the Houston Texans in 2019.
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