Ed Werder of ESPN had a lengthy report Sunday morning on the decision to send Brandon Marshall and Tony Scheffler to the bench for Week 17’s Broncos-Chiefs clash in Denver.
According to Werder, Marshall was benched after he was late to therapy for his injured hamstring on Friday. That followed an MRI on Wednesday that showed no structural damage to his hamstring, something that contributed to the team’s feeling that he might be exaggerating the extent of his injury.
The decision to bench Marshall and Scheffler, both of whom are banned from the locker room and sideline on Sunday, follows a meeting McDaniels had with several Broncos players on Monday. Werder cites Champ Bailey, Brian Dawkins and Kyle Orton as some of the players who urged the coach to stress accountability in the run-up to the game against the Chiefs.
Chris Mortensen, speaking on ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown, said that this indicates that there isn’t much disagreement with McDaniels’s decision even though the team is playing a game with playoff implications.
Should the Broncos make it to the postseason, Werder reports that there are no assurances that either Marshall or Scheffler would be back on the active roster.
