Another Busted Bronco
The Denver Broncos receivers are falling like dominos. First, Courtland Sutton was still recovering from his torn ACL late into the preseason. Then Jerry Jeudy went down. Now there’s the sophomore KJ Hamler who has officially been ruled out for the year with a torn ACL according to the Broncos official Twitter:
I believe this injury will be tougher on the Broncos’ offense than people will imagine, especially with Jeudy still expected to miss the next few weeks. Hamler was the type of receiver that could blow the roof off of the defense so even though Bridgewater hadn’t been getting him the ball there, that type of speed being gone allows opposing defenses to focus on other pieces of the offense.
REDRAFT IMPACT
The remaining receivers for the Broncos are Sutton, Tim Patrick, and in the slot is Diontae Spencer. Hamler only saw 15 of the 67 offensive snaps for the Broncos on Sunday before exiting. Patrick and Sutton each saw 76% which should be lower than expected due to the extreme nature of the game script. Don’t expect there to be as few snaps in games against anyone but the Jets. Diontae Spencer clocked in at 36% showing he is the true short-term beneficiary for playing time.
As I said above, I think the lack of a deep threat will have a meaningful impact on the offense. I expect safeties to be able to shade to Sutton’s side of the field as they dare to let Patrick and Spencer beat corners one on one. This team needs another weapon on the outside. The next few weeks will prove to be very difficult for the Broncos’ offensive weapons as the schedule also gets much tougher. I would be abandoning ship on any Broncos player except the defense in Redraft leagues. The Raiders, Ravens, Steelers (eh), and Browns are going to be much tougher than the Jaguars, Giants, and Jets who have a combined 0-9 record.
DYNASTY IMPACT
KJ Hamler wasn’t very valuable in dynasty leagues, to begin with as the world was watching him, hopeful that he could maintain some consistency as a deep threat. However, we did not get to see any glance of that this early on in the year. Hamler is a hold for me. You won’t get any value in a trade right now, and it’s free to stick him on your IR until next year. My long-term projection of Hamler is poor, but deep threats have a tendency to stick around the league for a while and he has the talent, he just needs a better opportunity. He’ll be a player I hope to see on a new team over the next few years and hopefully, he will fully recover and get back on the field next year.
What do you think of the KJ Hamler injury? Do you think he’s droppable or are you stashing the speedster for next year? Hit me up @DFF_JoeMem on Twitter to let me know! And be sure to sign up for the DFF monthly subscription so you can have access to my Redraft Rankings and be one step ahead of the competition!
