Callahan set to build off strong 2020 campaign for Broncos

There is no person more frustrated by his injuries over the past few seasons than Denver Broncos cornerback Bryce Callahan.

In his two-year tenure in the Mile High City, Callahan has missed 22 of a possible 32 games, including the entire 2019 season with a foot injury.

“I’m tired of the injuries more than anybody else, man,” Callahan said after OTAs on Tuesday. “It’s something you can kind of control and you can’t control. So, it is what it is.”

But even in an injury-shortened 2020 campaign, Callahan managed to rank among the top cornerbacks in the NFL, with Pro Football Focus grading him as the third best at his position last season.

And with no offseason surgeries to work through, Callahan said he’s even gotten a head start in returning to elite form in 2021.

“This season’s a little bit different because I didn’t have to get surgery this past year, so I’m not coming off of too much rehab,” Callahan said. “This year, I actually got to dive into my offseason a little bit earlier since I wasn’t dealing with surgery. So, my confidence is a lot higher. I’m not every worried about my foot or feeling my foot so, we’ll see where it goes.”

Callahan said the sky is the limit to where he and the Broncos secondary can go in 2021 after an offseason that saw the additions of Kyle Fuller and Ronald Darby in free agency and Patrick Surtain II in the NFL Draft.

“I mean, the expectations are very high. You see the depth. I feel like we have all the guys, we have all the pieces to have the best secondary in the league,” Callahan said. “So, it’s up to us to execute the calls and just prove what everybody else is thinking.”

Callahan said he was more “excited” than “worried” for his job with all the offseason acquisitions, saying that “having more ball players on the field is just going to give us all more opportunities to make plays.”

“Obviously, it’s always a competition with your job. I wasn’t worried. I know it’s a competition, and I’m excited to play with those guys out there,” Callahan said.

And even with the added bodies to the secondary room this season, Callahan figures to make a big impact for the Broncos defense, said head coach Vic Fangio on Tuesday.

“Obviously, in this day and age in the NFL, you’re playing a lot of nickel and five and six DBs, and if that was all he did, that would get him 70-80 percent of the snaps,” Fangio said. “But we know he’s very capable of playing corner. I have a lot of confidence in him to play corner. And he’ll be out there, somehow, someway.”