Will Ryan Clady's Injury Torpedo Peyton Manning's Shot at Another Super Bowl?

For most of the 2014 season, the Denver Broncos appeared headed for a second straight Super Bowl appearance. However, things started looking shaky in December, and the wheels came completely off the bus in an embarrassing home playoff loss to the Indianapolis Colts in January.

Part of those late-season struggles can be traced to an offensive line that went from outstanding in 2013 to very good early in the 2014 season to merely OK late in the year.

On Thursday, the team received some devastating news regarding that offensive line—news that puts a serious dent in Peyton Manning's odds of making one last run at a Lombardi Trophy in 2015.

As ESPN's Adam Schefter reported, left tackle Ryan Clady suffered an ACL tear in practice Wednesday that's expected to cost the 28-year-old the entire 2015 season:

As Troy E. Renck of the Denver Post reports, head coach Gary Kubiak confirmed the news:

"

We really weren't that worried last night. Everybody felt good, but we thought we'd take a look at it this morning, and unfortunately we got some horrible news. We're going to get it taken care of and then make some decisions. There will be no decisions made real quickly. Just feel bad for Ryan. He worked really hard and he's a great kid.

"

Oftentimes when an injury such as this occurs, the hyperbole comes quickly. Words like "crushing" and "devastating" (which I already used) are thrown around like "that" and "the." However, in this case, the hyperbole isn't hyperbolic.

Short of an injury to Manning himself, this is the worst-case scenario for the Broncos.

Granted, Pro Football Focus ranking Clady 41st among NFL tackles last year is hardly awe-inspiring. But as Renck wrote, that doesn't change the fact that Clady was supposed to be one of the few answers on a Broncos front littered with questions this year:

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Clady represented a certainty, a four-time Pro Bowler relied on to protect quarterback Peyton Manning's blindside. Question marks litter the offensive line. Louis Vasquez, an All-Pro, will start at right guard. From there, it's new faces and multiple position battles, including free agents Shelley Smith at guard and Gino Gradkowski at center.

"

Vasquez may well be an All-Pro, but the 28-year-old ranked a so-so 28th among guards last year on PFF. Smith ranked 54th. Gradkowski didn't play enough snaps for the Baltimore Ravens last year to qualify for PFF's big board.

As Jeff Legwold of ESPN reported, the Broncos quickly moved to add a lineman after Clady went down:

Ryan Harris ranked 38th among tackles while playing in Kansas City in 2014. Simply put, there's a reason why a 30-year-old offensive tackle with starting experience on both sides of the line was still looking for work at the end of May.

Harris just isn't very good. And he certainly isn't Clady.

Denver's offensive line was already being pointed to as the team's biggest weak spot—at least on that side of the ball—in 2015. It was a unit that was going to be hard-pressed to come anywhere close to its first-place ranking in pass protection last year on Football Outsiders.

Now that line has lost its linchpin, and one of the NFL's most immobile quarterbacks—a quarterback nearing 40 years of age who looked it late last year—has lost his blindside safety net.

The sky may not be falling in Denver, but you might want to reinforce your umbrella.

You know, just in case.

Gary Davenport is an NFL analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and the Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter at @IDPSharks.