Broncos’ overhaul of their athletic training and sports-medicine operations continues

One day after dismissing Nathaniel Hackett, Broncos co-owner and CEO Greg Penner made it clear that he wanted answers regarding the Broncos’ higher-than-average injury rates of recent years, a trend that reached epidemic proportions in 2022.

And he didn’t want to wait for his next head coach for that.

“The new head coach will definitely be involved in that, but I tend to be impatient,” Penner said, noting that a review of injuries was already well under way. That process included conferring with the NFL’s chief medical officer, Dr. Allen Sills.

“We are not waiting for a head coach to start looking at what the changes that are needed here,” Penner said nearly two months ago. “The head coach, when we find that person, will be deeply involved in how we move forward from that point.”

Fast-forward to late February. Barely 72 hours from the dawn of the NFL Scouting Combine, Penner’s new head coach brought in a trusted lieutenant to guide the Broncos’ sports-medicine department.

Beau Lowery ran the sports-performance program in New Orleans under Sean Payton from 2017 through the 2021 offseason. He spent the last year-plus at LSU, the school from he received his master’s degree. And perhaps most importantly, the Saints were perennially among the NFL’s leaders in fewest games lost to injury.

That’s key. Because in the three years before Lowery joined the Saints, they went 7-9 each time. In his four seasons with the club, they won four NFC South titles. Talent mattered to those teams — but so did good health.

“Beau Lowery is the best I’ve ever been around,” Payton said in a statement. “He was a complete game-changer for us in New Orleans who reshaped how we operated in our training room and throughout our sports performance areas.”

The problems in Denver are deeper than one year, of course. One can talk about last summer’s preseason without most starters playing, or the prevalence of “jog-through” days in training camp. But the Broncos’ injury issues predated Hackett’s experimental camp.

“This has been ongoing in Denver — the injury problems,” GM George Paton said in December. “We have had a number of head coaches, and it’s up to us to fix the problem and do a deep dive in our entire wellness, our training, our strength and conditioning, our nutrition. It’s a bigger problem than just that.”

And now they hope they have the big solution in Lowery.

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