Like a category-5 hurricane lingering over 88-degree waters, the storm of injury-related losses that has beset the Broncos continued its unremitting fury Thursday when Jarvis Moss fractured his right fibula and tore ankle ligaments in practice, ending the first-round pick’s season after just eight and a half weeks.

Moss’s injury was compounded by the news that Rod Smith would not be ready to play within the next two weeks, thus going beyond the three-week trial period allowed to physically-unable-to-perform list. He, too, is lost for the remainder of the season.

Moss’ injury was “kind of a freak accident,” Head Coach Mike Shanahan said when he announced the news after practice.

“He’ll have surgery here in the next few days and it will be about a three- or four-month recovery time,” Shanahan said. “It’s very similar to the injury Cecil Sapp had (last December against Seattle), and he came back full speed. It happened in a nine-on-seven drill today.”

As for Smith, the decision came after a week of practice during which the wide receiver’s hip remained “quite sore,” some eight months after the debridement procedure that sidelined him through all of the offseason and training-camp practices, as well as the first seven games of the regular season.

“After seeing the doctor (and) after practicing for about a week, he could see that he’s a little too far away to have a chance to be activated in the next couple of weeks,” Shanahan said. “So, obviously, he won’t be activated in the next two weeks, which means he won’t be activated for this year. We’ll just take some time, see where it’s at at the end of the season and we’ll see exactly where he’s at.”

LYNCH UPDATE: Shanahan said that John Lynch was limited in his on-field practice work Thursday, and that he would have a better idea of his status after Friday’s session.”