STERNS HOPES FOR A HEALTHY 2024
Sterns tore his patella tendon on his second snap of the season Week 1
Caden Sterns spent much of the season around the Broncos facility.
For the most part, though, he couldn’t bring himself to watch practice or spend too much time around the locker room.
Instead, Sterns was focused on rehabilitating from a torn patella tendon that cut his season short after just two plays into Week 1 against Las Vegas.
“It sucked. It really sucked not being out there,” Sterns told reporters earlier this month. ”Especially when you expect so much out of yourself and then you watch how this team kind of came together and overcame everything going on early in the season and going on that streak.
“You just kind of feel useless. And I don’t wish that on nobody.”
So Sterns instead buried himself in his own work rather than dwelling on what he missed as Denver rebounded from a 1-5 start to win five straight and briefly get itself back in the playoff picture.
“I’ve been here, but not really necessarily around the team because, like I said, it sucked for me and kind of being around hurt, you know.”
Sterns, who will be entering his fourth professional season in 2024, is no stranger to missing time. He filled in admirably for Justin Simmons early in the 2022 season but then missed the final 12 games when a long-troubling hip impingement got bad enough that surgery became necessary.
That means of the last 29 Broncos games, the former University of Texas standout has played two snaps.
“I’m so confident and that’s what’s frustrating to me,” he said. “I expect so much out of myself and I spent so much time in the offseason just to have my season taken like that. You kind of take it for granted. You work so hard through training and not to be able to experience the season and all the ups and downs with my teammates, man, it wasn’t fun at all.”
The early season injury stung the Broncos particularly hard because P.J. Locke began the year on injured reserve with a dislocated toe and Simmons missed two games with a hip/groin injury. Now with Kareem Jackson gone, Locke a free agent-to-be and Delarrin Turner-yell set to miss the beginning of the 2024 season at least due to a knee injury, the Broncos’ safety position is one with plenty of question marks.
Sterns told The Post before the season he believed Denver had four startingcaliber safeties in Simmons, Jackson, himself and Locke and glowed after the season about Locke, his former UT teammate, proving him right.
“Oh my god, man. I’m just sit here and I’m just so happy for him,” Sterns said. “And just the type of teammate he is. … We’ve kind of grown together as far as mentally playing safety because in college he played nickel at Texas. I’m just extremely proud of him. I said from the beginning that I thought we had a deep safety room and for him to come out there and show what he’s capable of, I’m just so happy for him.
“Hopefully he can come back next year because he’s like a big brother to me and I love that dude.”
Obviously, Sterns is hoping he’s back in full, healthy form, too. He said he expects to be involved in the offseason program and OTAS to some degree, but doesn’t know if he’ll be full-go. The most important thing, of course, is to be ready for training camp in late July and then try, once and for all, to put years of injury issues behind him.
“It’s like any other thing, you have good days and you have bad days,” Sterns said.
“I’m thankful for my family, the people that have been around me and my teammates as well. But you know, it’s part of the story. I’m not one of those guys that sits here — I had my phase where I was doing my pouting. That was probably a week or so afterwards. “But when you know what you want to do and what your dream is, I’m going to give everything at it.
“I’ve had some unlucky injuries, but I think it’s going to make a hell of a story and it’s nothing that I can’t come back from.”
WEBB TO COACH ALL-STAR GAME >> Broncos quarterback coach Davis Webb on Thursday was named the offensive coordinator for the West team in the upcoming East-west Shrine Bowl in Las Vegas.
Webb, 28, just finished his first year as a full-time assistant in the NFL. He’ll see many talented offensive players during the week of practice and leading into the game. The quarterbacks invited to the game include: Kentucky’s Devin Leary, UCF’S John Rhys Plumlee, Louisville’s Jack Plummer, WKU’S Austin Reed, BYU’S Kedon Slovis and injured FSU standout Jordan Travis.
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