When Sean Payton joined the Denver Broncos in 2023, he cleared out most of the team’s staff, including the old strength and performance staff.
One under-the-radar addition that Payton brought in was Beau Lowery, who was hired as the team’s vice president of player health and performance. Last spring, Denver general manager George Paton said he believed the addition of Lowery could prove to be a “game changer” for the Broncos.
Paton was right.
After a terrible year of injuries in 2022, Denver had a much better injury rate under the new staff in 2023. Was it a coincidence? Payton doesn’t think so.
“I think the one thing, and this is a credit to Beau and the people all involved in the weight room, athletic training room and people that are treating our players — we had a big goal of how do we reduce the injuries?” Payton said this spring. “Shoot, the first training camp I had with you guys, we had someone get hurt and it was like, ‘Man, here it goes again.’ I don’t know if it’s ever happened before, but we went from 32nd in the league in games missed by players on your roster to first in the league by fewest. So we went from 100 and some to 30 and some in one year.”
Payton believes that the additions of Lowery and strength and conditioning coach Dan Dalrymple directly correlated to that reduced number of injuries.
“I think he’s a real good communicator and he’s passionate about what he does,” Payton said of Dalrymple. “We’re so much further along relative to recovery and strength and conditioning now. We’re able to get all the — each practice, we’re able to see workloads for players.
“He’s very adaptable. I would say a strong quality is he’s a real good staff member. He can relate to the players and he’ll push them. There are a lot of leadership qualities that I saw when we were together at Miami of Ohio 20 years ago.”
The Broncos currently have two players on the season-ending IR list. Fans in Denver will hope that the team’s lower injury rate in 2023 was a sign of a new normal and not a one-off healthy season.
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