For Graham Glasgow, staying with Broncos via re-worked contract “best option” after being injured

The Broncos’ coaches have been purposely coy about how they will assemble their offensive line when organized team activity workouts begin Monday and training camp begins in late July.

The same goes for veterans like Graham Glasgow.

“Interior, I guess,” he said when I asked him last month during voluntary minicamp if he is playing guard or center. “I’m just trying to get back into football and doing a little bit of everything and see where the chips fall.”

For Glasgow, it could be either guard spot or center. The Broncos should keep Quinn Meinerz at right guard and then pick among Glasgow/Lloyd Cushenberry at center and Glasgow/Dalton Risner at left guard.

Glasgow wasn’t cleared for team work during the first minicamp because of an ankle/leg injury last fall. His status for OTAs is unclear, but he said he “should be good to go by the start of training camp.”

Last month, Glasgow said he was “a little rusty. Some things were a little awkward, but I think over time, it will get better and better and I’ll get to the point where I can play good football again.”

Glasgow’s 2021 season was off the rails from the beginning. After the Week 1 win over the New York Giants, he was transported by ambulance to a New Jersey hospital because of an irregular heartbeat that forced him to miss a game. In Week 3, he sustained a knee injury, keeping him out another game.

The big injury was on the final play of the first half at Dallas in Week 9.

“I had been rolled up on hundreds of times,” Glasgow said. “It was pretty painful and I knew something was wrong. I thought I had broken my ankle. When they told me I had broken my leg, I thought, ‘Actually not that bad, two-month deal and back to 100%.’ That was only part of it, unfortunately.”

Glasgow had also sustained torn ligaments throughout his ankle, requiring surgery and a lengthy rehabilitation. He was not cleared to walk without a boot until late January/early February. Around that time, he agreed to re-work his contract that included a $5.9 million pay cut.

Glasgow’s $3.1 million base salary became fully guaranteed in March and he can earn back some of the money through playing-time incentives — $250,000 for 50% of the offensive snaps, $500,000 for 60%, $1 million for 70%, $1.2 million for 80% and $1.4 million for 90%.

An easy decision?

“It just really came down to, I love the area, my wife loves it here, I like playing here and I feel like it was the best option I had coming off the injury I had,” he said. “It’s just the reality of the situation.”

New QBs, new announcers. Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson’s regular-season debut — Sept. 12 at Seattle — will also be the opening game for the ESPN announcing duo of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.

“I think he’s going to be fantastic,” Aikman said of Wilson. “He’s obviously had a great career, he’s won a lot of football games, won a lot of playoff games. He’s just won and that’s something Denver hasn’t done much of since Peyton (Manning) retired. I expect the Broncos to be much improved because of (Wilson).”

Said Buck: “Our first moments on ‘Monday Night Football’ probably won’t involve us talking very much because I think you need to hear that natural reaction and let the crowd carry it. There’s no crowd like in Seattle.”

Accelerator program. The inaugural Coach and Front Office Accelerator Program will be held Monday-Tuesday in Atlanta and the Broncos will be represented by defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero and executive director of football operations/special advisor to the general manager Kelly Kleine.

The program will provide senior women and minority prospects the opportunity to network with club owners. The goal is to build a diverse hiring pipeline for future head coaches and general managers.

High ticket prices. According to Logitix, the Broncos’ $338 average home-game ticket price on the secondary market ranks eighth in the NFL. The top five are Las Vegas ($595), Miami ($397), the Chargers ($361), the Rams ($359) and Kansas City ($354).

Among single games, the Broncos’ Oct. 2 trip to Las Vegas ranks second ($555) and their Sept. 25 home game against San Francisco ranks 10th ($380). The highest-priced game is San Francisco at Las Vegas on Jan. 1 ($777).

Footnotes. The Broncos will host the Dallas Cowboys for a joint practice Aug. 11, two days before the teams’ preseason opener. … This week, the Broncos are scheduled for OTA workouts on Monday-Tuesday and Thursday. … As of Friday, only fourth-round cornerback Demarri Mathis and defensive lineman Eyioma Uwazurike remained unsigned from the Broncos’ nine-man draft class.

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