That hit, Pat Bryant is asked, isn’t in the back of your head? He turns his nose up on a Thursday afternoon in Dove Valley. “Oh, nah,” Bryant said. “Hell nah. It’s football.” At that moment, that hit was enough to send the Denver Broncos’ entire 53-man roster out to the grass to enci rcle a 23-year-old rookie receiver. And send Bryant’s father, Pat Sr., sitting in section 100, to round up family members to head to the elevator. And send Bryant’s mother, Louanne Harris-Bryant, to the hospital herself, in momentary shock and dehydration. “That’s just my mom,” Bryant said. “My momma dramatic.” Three weeks after that hit that sent a crowd of 75,261 at Empower Field into a pallid silence, Bryant is ever the same. It was a football play, he shrugged. There is no animosity toward the Jaguars’ Montaric Brown, who delivered a blow on a hospital-ball crossing route strong enough to send Bryant to the hospital for precautionary measures. As medical staff strapped Bryant to a gurney to immobilize him and carted the rookie off, late in that 34-20 loss to Jacksonville, he had one prevailing thought. Montaric Brown (30) of the Jacksonville Jaguars blows up Pat Bryant (13) of the Denver Broncos during the fourth quarter of the Jaguars’ 34-20 win at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver on Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025. Bryant would leave the field on a cart as a result of the play. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post) “I was just really hoping, somehow,” Bryant said, “we won the mother(expletive) game.” After a one-week absence due to a concussion, the receiver returned in Week 18 and led all Broncos receivers with four catches against Los Angeles. Bryant’s favorite route is the 10-yard dig. He hunts over the middle and doesn’t care if he gets hunted right back. That hasn’t changed. It won’t change. “To go through it like that and still want to come back to work, get healthy, come back and do the same stuff — that’s exactly why everyone on the team loves him,” guard Alex Palczewski said. “Because he’s gonna do his (expletive) job. It’s as simple as that.” Ultimately, that play on Dec. 21, 2025, will prove a mere footnote in Denver’s season. For Bryant, though, it was a strange confluence of his past and present. He hoped the Jaguars game would bring triumph. It brought fear, instead. Bryant was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, a proud torchbearer for Duval County. Ten to 15 of Bryant’s friends and family members had flown from back home to that December game, with the third-round rookie starting to carve out an integral role in Sean Payton’s offense. The Abyssinia Missionary Baptist Church in Jacksonville, which Bryant grew up attending, held a fundraiser this year: the church member who brought in the most new visitors earned tickets to Broncos-Jaguars in the NFL’s Week 16. Related Articles Broncos’ Sean Payton says he needs to be ‘quick and decisive’ heading into Broncos-Bills Broncos’ rush defense faces stiffest challenge yet: ‘We’d better stop the (freaking) run’ Broncos-Bills scouting report: How will Vance Joseph’s linebackers handle Josh Allen, Buffalo’s TEs? 10 moments that defined the Broncos’ historic, 14-3 regular season Broncos pay $13M for steel fabricator’s lot by Burnham Yard “It was a big moment,” Bryant Sr. said, “for the people that knew him.” It was a big moment for Bryant, too, who’d caught 12 passes across the last three weeks in establishing himself as a go-to target for Broncos quarterback Bo Nix. And in a final last-gasp drive with less than two minutes to play, Nix looked to Bryant for a short gain on a 2nd-and-10. And the next play, an 11-yard grab for a first down. And the next play, when Nix rolled right to escape pressure and saw Bryant working back over the middle. Bryant Sr.’s first thought, watching his son leap and contort midair to grasp at Nix’s missile, was that it reminded him of a catch Bryant had made in college at Illinois. Against Michigan State, maybe. Or against Rutgers. Interchangeable, because this is what Bryant did. In the Broncos’ win over the Washington Commanders two weeks earlier, Bryant drew a third-quarter holding penalty, saw the yellow flag fly out right in front of him, and still went up and took a monster shot over the middle on a scramble-toss from Nix. The play was already dead. But he caught the ball. “He knows,” Bryant Sr. said, “to expect that. “And the main thing that he’s always been taught, even when I coached him – if you go out there and play scared, you’re gonna get hurt.” On this Sunday against Jacksonville, though, Bryant couldn’t hang on. Brown flew over, lowered his shoulder into Bryant’s chest, and the receiver’s head snapped backward. “Get up,” his father thought, rows above. He did not. Teammates bowed. “I mean, young guy, rookie, at that point in the game – that’s the last thing you want to see,” receiver Marvin Mims Jr. said. “My heart broke,” said offensive lineman Palczewski, who played with Bryant for two years at Illinois. Still, Bryant was moving. His father was concerned. But there wasn’t direct helmet-on-helmet violence, and Bryant Sr. still wasn’t thinking the worst, even as his son was carted off in Denver. By the time the family slogged through postgame traffic to arrive at a nearby hospital, Bryant had already undergone a couple of neurological tests that came back negative. A Broncos team doctor explained to Bryant Sr. that the immobilization was just a precaution. “I was very appreciative to the doctors there, very impressed with the Broncos, their medical team and their staff reacting quickly,” Bryant Sr. said. “So I was just grateful, the way that the organization kind of came together just to make sure that he was OK.” Indeed, as soon as they left Empower Field, a group of Bryant’s teammates made their way to the hospital to see him: fellow receiver Marvin Mims Jr., and fellow rookies Jahdae Barron and RJ Harvey. “Just to be there for him, know that we care about him, and just – goes past this team, this locker room, you know what I mean?” Mims said. Bryant was plenty alert at that point, if tired, those in the room recall. And hungry. He asked if he could get something to eat. Nothing was amiss. After missing Week 17, Bryant looked none the worse for wear against the Chargers. In the fourth quarter, he caught an option route from Nix, dusted one defender, and spun away from another for an 11-yard gain. In Bryant’s last five healthy games, he’s put up 21 catches for 229 yards, becoming a favorite target for Nix when plays break down and a go-to option on slants and in-breakers. He’ll be vital to Denver’s hopes on Saturday, as Buffalo’s defense under head coach Sean McDermott is geared to keep opposing passing games in check underneath. And one hit will not change the way Bryant plays. “It’s football,” Bryant says Thursday. “I’ve got hit hard plenty times. That one was just a little different. “(Expletive) happens,” he continues. “You just gotta move on for a minute and focus on – today, honestly.” Want more Broncos news? Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis. ...read more read less