Broncos Lose Another Linebacker to Injured Reserve

It's literally every week for the Denver Broncos that a player gets transferred from the active roster to injured reserve. Coming out of Sunday's 24-15 victory over the Arizona Cardinals, it was no different for Denver.

On Monday, the Broncos placed linebacker Dakota Allen on season-ending IR with a hamstring injury. Denver signed Allen in late November. He appeared in two games, posting zero stats.

Allen is the second player in about a 48-hour window to hit the Broncos' IR list. On Saturday, Denver placed its leader in sacks on the shelf when Dre'Mont Jones landed on IR with a hip injury. The Broncos now have 20 players on IR, which is the most in the NFL.

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Also pacing the league is the Broncos' number of salary-cap dollars on IR, which is projected to be in excess now of $60 million. Football is a violent sport with a high attrition rate, but this study by Mile High Huddle's Erick Trickel reveals, quite starkly, that 2022 is no outlier when it comes to the Broncos' annual injury misfortune.

As 9NEWS' Mike Klis illustrated on Twitter, Allen's ailment represents the 11th hamstring injury to cost a Broncos player time this season. What are we doing here?

Broncos placed LB Dakota Allen on IR with hamstring, per source. Picked up to help replace ILB Jonas Griffith, veteran Allen played in one game for Broncos and became one of 11 players to miss time with a hamstring. #9sports
— Mike Klis (@mikeklis) December 19, 2022

When addressing the Courtland Sutton situation, even head coach Nathaniel Hackett couldn't help but point out how many hamstring injuries the Broncos have dealt with this season.

"We’ve been dealing with these quite a bit this year, so we don’t want anything to be aggravated," Hackett said on Monday.

Call it bad luck. Even so, the old saying is that fortune favors the bold. The insane number of injuries this year, and to so many key players, has cost the Broncos a chance to truly compete in the AFC West.

Perhaps 2022 will serve as the straw that breaks the camel's back, as it were, and GM George Paton (if, indeed, he survives in the Broncos' front office as current reporting indicates) could look to finally snap the status quo when it comes to potentially shaking up the team's strength and conditioning program.

Even if the Broncos ultimately opt to retain current strength and conditioning coach Loren Landow, at the very least, this team's program needs a complete overhaul and upgrade. The Broncos have to make their own luck.

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