Dang straight, he thought about opting out. Who wouldn’t? New dad. Baby at home. A potentially chaotic fall. Phillip Lindsay never quit on anything. Certainly not teammates. Certainly not on anything he could control. But COVID-19?

COVID-19 was … different.

“He thought a lot about it,” Troy Lindsay, father of the Broncos’ Pro Bowl tailback, told me recently. “With Phil, being an undrafted free agent … a lot of the ones that got to opt out, they’ve already gotten their money. And for him, it was more of one of those things where he’s saying, ‘Dad, I can’t … we need the money.’

“(The Broncos) have him under contract for this year, it’s his tender year. Even if (they don’t tender him), he still has the possibility of getting something (on the open market) even bigger. So it really wasn’t the time to take off. But for him, he’s so worried about it. Phil, he’s always worrying about his long-term stuff, with (taking care of) his family.”

Lindsay’s slated to become a restricted free agent after this season. The three-year, $1.725-million contract he signed with the Broncos in 2018, which included a $15,000 signing bonus, has proven to be one of the best bargains in the NFL. The most important skill for a tailback in today’s game is reliability on the receiving front. Almost as important: Availability. Especially in an autumn that’s seeing stars drop like flies.

“Anybody can get COVID at any time,” Lindsay, the former CU and Denver South standout, said last week. “It’s one of those things where you try your hardest to keep it away. But it’s a disease and it’s something that spreads. Knowing that, you have to go through every day like you’re protecting your family, yourself and your job.”

Lindsay hasn’t got time for COVID deniers. Or teammates who act as if they’re too cool for masks, too invincible to give a flip about safety protocols. Or the way the NFL keeps yanking the Broncos around because of the Patriots’ coronavirus follies.

An unseen enemy never seems real until it hits you. It hit Phillip Lindsay’s dad about two months ago. Hard.

“So for Phillip, it’s even more important than you can imagine,” said Troy, who was hospitalized late in the summer after contracting the coronavirus. “We didn’t get to see our grandbaby for (more than) two weeks.”

The elder Lindsay, who was a running back at Colorado State back in the day, considers himself lucky, all things considered. He didn’t require a ventilator and was discharged from the hospital after a week.

“I kind of question a lot of this (from the NFL), because I know with COVID, if you get it, there’s some lingering side effects,” Troy said. “And I’m sorry, but in the NFL, you see it here and then (they’re) saying, ‘OK, these people got it,’ and they can come back in a week.

“Well, they gave me some of the wrong medicine. Because I sure wasn’t back in a week. I didn’t get any of that magical Trump stuff.”

More than eight weeks later, Troy still feels it from time to time. The fatigue. The shortness of breath. The dulled senses. He’s 59, on the cusp of the danger zone.

“Some days, you’re not clear — it’s not clear,” the elder Lindsay explained. “You know after you’ve been up all night, you wake up groggy? You think you’re OK the next day. And then … it comes back.

“Your sense of smell and taste takes a while to come back. It affects your lungs and your heart and so you’re still (exhausted). You’re tired all the time and you find yourself out of breath more often.”

So if Cam Newton can run around at full tilt against the Broncos after this, Troy figures, hats off to you, kid.

“It is real,” Troy said. “The younger people, they come out of it better than old people do. It’s basically just because they’re younger. But as you get older, man, I’d out.

“Everyone says that, ‘You’re well,’ and, ‘You don’t have it anymore.’ There’s some lingering stuff there. Keep that mask on. And keep your distance.”