Broncos Limiting Quarterback Blake Bortles’ Time At The Facility In Case Of A COVID19 Outbreak At The Position

By Jordan Long

The Denver Broncos are preparing to take on the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday Night football.  The Chiefs have won the previous ten meetings.  Denver last beat Kansas City on September 17th, 2015.  Denver hopes to end that drought.  Starting this week, Denver decided to limit quarterback Blake Bortles’ time at the facility so they don’t have the same situation as last week.

                Last week, Denver was forced to face the New Orleans Saints without any quarterbacks.  The reason why was Jeff Driskel tested positive for COVID19 and the other quarterbacks were in close contact with him not wearing masks.  Instead of the NFL moving this game for Denver to have a healthy quarterback they started Kendall Hinton, a practice squad wide receiver,  who hadn’t play the position since 2018 in college.

                The Broncos decided for the remaining 5 games of the season, Bortles will be able to get tested and have meals with the team but won’t practice.  This will limit his exposure in case of an outbreak.  Denver would have an active quarterback who has played in the NFL if the same situation happened like last week.  According to broncoswire.usatoday.com, Head Coach Vic Fangio said, “One thing we’re going to do today and do it on a day to day basis — Blake’s not going to come into the building today from home after the virtual meetings. We’re just going to limit his exposure here.”

                This idea should have occurred weeks ago.  With the rising COVID numbers, there was always a chance players could contract this and derail a week.  It just happened it was the quarterbacks for Denver.  If Denver would have kept Bortles at home and limited his time with his teammates, the Broncos wouldn’t have needed to start Hinton last week.   The game might have been better.  Who knows if the Broncos would have put up more than 3 points, but at least they could have moved the football through the air more.

                The Broncos learned from last week.  More franchises might want to follow the Broncos example.  It would be awful if another team has to play an NFL  game without quarterbacks because of an outbreak.   Limiting the exposure to teammates could allow them to have at least one healthy quarterback. If not, they will be forced to play an athlete who has never played the position at the NFL level.  It may go about as well as the Broncos game last Sunday.