{"id":335435,"date":"2025-09-02T10:33:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T10:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/335435\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T10:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T10:33:10","slug":"broncos-are-being-smart-with-linebacker-coming-back-from-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/335435\/","title":{"rendered":"Broncos are being ‘smart’ with linebacker coming back from injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Denver Broncos<\/a> are going to be cautious with inside linebacker Dre Greenlaw this fall.<\/p>\n

Greenlaw, 28, tore his Achilles in Super Bowl LVIII in February 2024, and he returned to the San Francisco 49ers last December. He appeared in two games before being shut down for the season after experiencing knee discomfort and then straining his calf. This spring, a healthy Greenlaw hit free agency and signed a three-year, $31.5 million contract<\/a> with the Broncos<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Greenlaw then suffered a quad injury<\/a> while working out on his own this spring, and he suffered another quad injury<\/a> during training camp this summer. Denver held him out of preseason games as a precaution.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe hadn\u2019t played in the preseason, but he\u2019s gotten a lot of work,” Broncos coach Sean Payton said Monday. “We are being smart. We\u2019re being conservative relative to the approach. It\u2019s a long season. So most importantly, having him not only healthy early on, but for the long haul is the goal.<\/p>\n

“[V.P. of player health and performance] Beau [Lowery] and his staff do a great job of that, better than anyone in the league. With each player, you have to treat them accordingly relative to the injuries, the injury history, the position they play. And yes, is there always risk when you\u2019re lining up out there playing a position like that? There certainly is, but he\u2019s very much in tuned to what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

NFL staffers ranked Greenlaw as the ninth-best linebacker in the league<\/a> this offseason, which is a testament to his impact on the game when healthy. Denver hopes to keep the veteran linebacker on the field over a long season, and the game plan might include snap counts<\/a> early in the campaign. Greenlaw will be ready to play in Sunday’s season opener against the Tennessee Titans<\/a>, but the Broncos won’t ask him to do too much too soon.<\/p>\n

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This article originally appeared on Broncos Wire: Denver Broncos: Sean Payton will be ‘smart’ with Dre Greenlaw<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Denver Broncos are going to be cautious with inside linebacker Dre Greenlaw this fall. Greenlaw, 28, tore…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2062],"tags":[232,231,258,2426,1160,7,4135,6,15987,20783,252,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-335435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-broncos","8":"tag-broncos","9":"tag-denver","10":"tag-denver-broncos","11":"tag-denverbroncos","12":"tag-dre-greenlaw","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-linebacker","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-preseason-games","17":"tag-quad-injury","18":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","19":"tag-tennessee-titans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115134255977785123","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}