Broncos inside linebacker Alex Singleton is in the midst of an offseason of milestones.
In everyday life, he became a new dad shortly after Denver bowed out of the wild-card round at Buffalo.
In his growing football legacy, he was inducted into Montana State University’s athletics hall of fame in February.
In his extensive work on behalf of Special Olympics, he hosted a cornhole tournament to raise money for Special Olympics Colorado on Friday evening in Denver.
In his rehabilitation from October ACL surgery, he has proceeded without delay and is primed to return in time for training camp from the only major injury the 31-year-old’s ever sustained in his football career.
“I can’t give specific numbers, but we have practices in a few weeks and you guys can see for yourselves where I’m at,” Singleton said Friday ahead of the tournament, which drew a sizable crowd to Edgewater and raised more than $11,000, according to the event’s webpage.
Singleton, of course, tore his ACL in a Week 3 Broncos win against Tampa Bay and then played the rest of the game without knowing the extent of the injury. He and Broncos coaches alike were blindsided later that night when told of the severity just before they headed to The Greenbrier in West Virginia.
Singleton had surgery Oct. 15 in Los Angeles and stayed on the West Coast — he’s a Thousand Oaks, California native — for just a couple of weeks before returning to Denver to ride out the season alongside his teammates.
Singleton on Thursday hit exactly seven months post-op.
The rehab’s gone smoothly, in part, he thinks, because the injury itself occurred in such an unusual way.
“In talking to people about the rehab process, a lot of people say when you first cut, it’s scary because you remember laying on the field and hurting,” he said. “Well, I never had that experience. My experience was going to the training room and saying, ‘Hey I need a sleeve so I can go drink at the bar with the guys.’ I found out later in the night that my knee was hurt, so I haven’t experienced any of that finality and the pain and all that stuff.”
That also, however, made coming to terms with the fact that he was unable to play and facing a long road back more difficult.
“It took forever,” Singleton said. “Until after I had surgery and was sitting at home and watching the Saints game and the Chiefs game and was like, ‘I’m not there.’ I was still at The Greenbrier with the guys and still got to be around the guys for so long (after the injury), so it was still weird.”
In the waning days of training camp last August, Singleton told The Post he’d been given a veteran rest day by head coach Sean Payton — the first of his career after going undrafted out of MSU in 2016, playing in the CFL and then working from special teamer to role player in Philadelphia and then starter and captain in Denver.
He’d never missed a practice in nine years of professional football until the Broncos flew from Tampa to West Virginia last fall to prepare for Week 4 against the New York Jets.
Then he watched the final 14 games and Denver’s first playoff contest in nearly a decade from the sideline.
There’s another milestone coming up soon that will feel like a small one to most of the fellow Broncos who showed up Friday to support Singleton. That list included fellow inside linebackers Justin Strnad and Levelle Bailey and defensive linemen Malcolm Roach and Jordan Jackson (defensive line coach Jamar Cain, too), along with offensive lineman Will Sherman, tight end Evan Engram — and his mom, Michelle Zelina — and long snapper Zach Triner.
“I think I’m getting my helmet fitted next week,” Singleton said. “I think that’ll be a little happy moment. Then the first OTAs. All these happy moments. And then training camp, it’ll be like, ‘Oh, we’re back.’ I think it’ll be really cool to get to do those things and get to do that.”
The start of camp is still more than two months away. The Tennessee Titans and rookie quarterback Cam Ward don’t show up to Empower Field for nearly four months.
All the more time for Singleton, who is entering the final year of a three-year deal signed ahead of the 2023 season, to continue to march toward fully ready to return to an NFL field. But he’s hoping it gets here fast.
“I couldn’t tell you a moment when (the weight of the injury) hit, but I’m excited for it to be over,” Singleton said.
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