A lot of Denver Broncos players were banged up by the end of the team’s deep playoff run, but star linebacker Nik Bonitto had one of the team’s most unusual injury situations. Bonitto had to play most of the season with a large club on his wrist along with a large brace on his arm due to an injury, and according to Luca Evans of the Denver Post, Bonitto took corrective measures, having what Evans referred to as “cleanup surgery” to fix the problem.
Ironically, the injury was actually self-inflicted. Bonitto hurt his wrist after the Broncos’ Week 2 loss to the Indianapolis Colts when he slammed his hand on the ground after the Colts’ walk-off win, hence the need for surgery.
It wasn’t Bonitto’s only injury of the season, either. He also had a bone spur surgically removed from his foot during the preseason, but the injuries didn’t seem to limit Bonitto’s productivity. The linebacker had what most players would call a career year, finishing with 14 sacks and 28 quarterback hits in 17 games.
“Individually, I had a great year, and I still feel like I can get better, and so can the team,” Bonitto said last week at practice for the Pro Bowl last week. “So, I have no regrets at this year.”
But Bonitto did come up just short on making the AP All-Pro team for the second straight season, missing the honor by just a single vote. Fellow linebacker Jonathon Cooper felt that Bonitto got “snubbed,” and Bonito basically said the same thing as he was preparing for the Pro Bowl.
“1000% — I knew I should’ve been one of those guys,” Bonitto said. “But at the end of the day, I wasn’t. And that’s just kinda gonna push me harder to be that, and not make it even close to where they can keep me out again. So, just have a lot of offseason work that’ll go into it.”
It’s hard to imagine Bonitto boosting his numbers, though. He did have a bit of a lull during the middle of the season, according to Evans, but Denver’s relentless pass rushers spent most of the season chasing the all-time sack record set by the Chicago Bears back in the 1980s.
The defense didn’t quite get there, but they did enough to get Denver to the AFC Championship game, where the Broncos lost a 10-7 weather game to the New England Patriots. Receiver Courtland Sutton was one of several players who said it should have been the Broncos in the Super Bowl, but Denver came up short, so consider Bonitto’s surgery part of the regrouping process.