Broncos Dodge Disaster as Pat Surtain II and Pat Bryant Avoid Serious Ankle Injuries

The Denver Broncos can officially exhale. After holding their collective breath waiting on MRI results, the team got the best possible news regarding star cornerback Pat Surtain II and wide receiver Pat Bryant. Both players avoided worst-case scenarios on their respective ankle injuries, with Ian Rapoport reporting the absences should only be short-term.

In the modern NFL, hearing the phrase short-term ankle injury instead of season-ending surgery is basically the equivalent of winning the lottery. You still have to pay taxes on it by missing a few games, but your year is not completely ruined.

"Ian Rapoport reported that both absences are expected to be short-term."

The injury scares came on the heels of Denver taking a 24-14 loss on the road against the San Francisco 49ers. Dropping a game to a physical NFC contender is frustrating, but losing your franchise cornerback for the season would have been a catastrophic blow to the entire operation.

Surtain is the kind of defensive anchor who casually deletes half the football field. When he is healthy, defensive coordinators sleep soundly. When he is out, the secondary suddenly looks like a group project where nobody did the reading. Bryant going down also thins out the receiver rotation, but Surtain is the structural load-bearing wall of this defense.

Denver will have to patch together a temporary solution in the secondary while Surtain rehabs. Anyone looking at the betting lines for the Broncos over the next few weeks needs to factor in exactly how vulnerable this defense becomes without its star corner. Surviving a short-term absence is doable, but the margin for error just got a whole lot thinner.