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Broncos coach Sean Payton feels for 'tough-minded' WR Tim Patrick after Achilles tear, surgery date TBD

Broncos coach Sean Payton on Tuesday confirmed receiver Tim Patrick sustained a “clean” tear of his left Achilles tendon during Monday’s practice.

Payton said the surgery date has not yet been set, but that he spoke with Patrick on Monday night and offered what little consolation he could.

“Of course he’s disappointed,” Payton said. “The hard thing is for a player who spent most of his offseason rehabbing and to all of a sudden hit another road block. He sounded better last night. He’s tough-minded. He’s a real good leader.”

Dr. Kenneth Jung, an orthopedic foot and ankle surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles, told The Post that, while Achilles injuries are difficult to rehabilitate from, most athletes today do so successfully.

“There’s newer protocols now where we’re definitely accelerating rehab,” Jung said. “It’s somewhere between six and nine months.”

Jung said the most difficult part of coming back is the atrophy in the calf muscle before athletes can really dial up their strength training. Similar with an ACL injury, like the one Patrick spent most of the past year working back from.

“I would expect that his ACL, it sounds like he was full go, so I wouldn’t imagine that (will complicate his rehab),” Jung said. “I would treat it as a fresh Achilles rupture where he’s treating the one side. The other side, he was cleared.

“Honestly, the hard part and the tricky part coming back from the Achilles is now he’s had two episodes where you have to overcome remembering that pop and that sensation. It’s getting that confidence back to be able to plant now off of both legs and really explode off of them.”

Hamler’s “unique” situation

Payton on Tuesday also indicated that the Broncos plan to bring receiver KJ Hamler back in some capacity, perhaps in around six weeks, after waiving him with a non-football illness designation Monday.

“His situation is unique, and it’s a unique condition,” Payton said.

Hamler has pericarditis, an inflammation of the heart’s protective lining.

Dr. Yu-Ming Ni, a cardiologist at MemorialCare Heart and Vascular Institute at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California, told The Post that pericarditis can be caused by another virus or by trauma to the chest wall and is a common condition. Hamler said via Instagram that he was rehabbing a torn pectoral muscle when he started to feel chest pain while training and subsequently was diagnosed with pericarditis.

It’s not the type of heart issue that puts athletes at greater risk of sudden cardiac arrest, Ni told The Post, but it can linger, and people who get it once have increased odds of getting it again.

Payton on Tuesday said the Broncos’ front office and Hamler and his agent were on the same page about how the next few weeks are likely to look.

“I don’t want to put a prognosis or a timeline on it, but approximately a month and then a couple weeks to get back into football shape,” Payton said. “We’re hopeful that once the symptoms dissipate and he’s cleared, then we’ve got a lot of options.

“We spent a lot of time with him and his agent coming up with the best plan and we feel like we have a good one.”

Broncos signing veteran CB Fabian Moreau

Denver on Tuesday agreed to a one-year deal with veteran cornerback Fabian Moreau, bolstering an already strong secondary.

Moreau, 29, started 11 games and appeared in 14 overall for the New York Giants last year. In six professional seasons between Washington, Atlanta and New York, he’s played in 90 games and started 45. A third-round pick by Washington in 2017, all six of Moreau’s career interceptions came between 2018-20.

Moreau, listed at 6-feet and 205 pounds, joins a cornerback group anchored by All-Pro Pat Surtain. Denver has K’Waun Williams in the slot and a competition between Damarri Mathis, JaQuan McMillian, rookie Riley Moss and others opposite Surtain.

©2023 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at denverpost.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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