Dre Greenlaw isn’t pretending his Denver run was anything but rough.
After leaving the San Francisco 49ers following six seasons and landing a multi-year deal in free agency, Greenlaw expected a fresh start with the Broncos. Instead, the year unraveled almost immediately.
A severe quad strain just two days into OTAs sent him to injured reserve for the first six games, and a hamstring issue followed later. He ended up playing only eight games and finished with 43 tackles.
In a recent interview with The Athletic, Greenlaw said the isolation hit hard.
“There were some dark moments,” Greenlaw told Michael Silver in a recent interview. “It’s tough, because I never got a chance to give them all I had.
There’s so much anger, frustration, and you just want to go out there and prove [your worth] to everybody, but you can’t. There were times when it was like, ‘Man, I don’t want to show my face in this building.’
Tough year.”
He said he spent more time around trainers than teammates and could feel coaches losing confidence after that early injury. The challenges didn’t stop there.
Greenlaw also dealt with Denver’s altitude, saying the dry air affected both his sleep and recovery. He described himself as “fighting demons left and right,” and said weight gain from being limited only added to the frustration.
Azeez Al-Shaair, one of Greenlaw’s close friends, saw the difference from the outside. The Houston linebacker said Greenlaw’s mind got the best of him. Greenlaw also had to adjust to a new scheme and a new culture after years in San Francisco, and that transition never came easy.
There was also the suspension that followed an altercation with a referee.
Greenlaw didn’t dodge any of it. He said he takes full accountability for how the season went, pointing to the fact that he pushed too hard too soon while still working back from previous Achilles and calf injuries. The urge to prove himself, especially after signing the big contract, took over.
“I don’t blame anything on the Broncos,” he told Silver. “Coming off the Achilles and the calf [injuries], I just wasn’t in the shape that I needed to be to go out there with them and give it all I got.
I should have taken it slow. [But] naturally, they’d just paid me, so that’s all I wanted to do - go show them what I could do.
And it bit me in the a-, the second day I got there.”
The Broncos cut him in March, and Greenlaw quickly found his way back to the 49ers on a one-year deal worth $7.5 million. He said California air feels different, and that he can run all day and feels at home again.
Al-Shaair believes Greenlaw is the kind of player who thrives when the people around him are right. Greenlaw, for his part, sounds ready to move on from a year that never got off the ground. He says he’s back where he belongs, and he’s still intent on proving people wrong.
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