Broncos offseason: TE Jeff Heuerman huge part of future

Denver Broncos offseason: Former Ohio State Buckeyes TE and Broncos 3rd round pick Jeff Heuerman figures to be a big piece of the team’s future…

For Denver Broncos rookie tight end Jeff Heuerman, the last two years haven’t been that terrible. As much as Heuerman would have loved to have been part of what the Broncos accomplished in winning Super Bowl 50 on the field, his redshirt stint on injured reserve this past year with a torn ACL still made him the first in history to do something.

No other NFL player has won the Super Bowl and the CFB Playoff.

Of course, it’s only the second year that we’ve had the CFB Playoff and that number will continue to rise annually, but for the moment, Heuerman is the only football player that can boast a CFP national championship as well as a Super Bowl ring.

What’s even cooler for Heuerman is the fact that he won both the 1st ever CFP national title and Super Bowl 50, two milestone events in the history of the game.

Like I said, not a bad way to leave the college game, and not a bad way to get your feet wet in the NFL.

As much as Heuerman has accomplished in the last two years, he hasn’t been physically able to do anything on the football field. He hurt himself in the Broncos’ first weekend of rookie minicamp, so by the time April rolls around, he should be really close to 100 percent for offseason activities barring any setbacks.

The tight end position was one the Broncos struggled to find a lot of consistency at all season, save for Owen Daniels being pretty much exactly what we’d all expected. John Elway traded for Vernon Davis in an effort to get some athleticism at the position, and he struggled with drops.

Go figure…

Virgil Green didn’t emerge as the pass catcher we all thought he might, so the main pass catcher at TE turned out to be Daniels. The Broncos are obviously very high on Heuerman, a player they used a top 100 selection on. Coming from the Ohio State program, it’s obvious that he can block, but he’s also big and athletic and has potential to be a big time pass catcher in the Gary Kubiak offense.

More importantly, Heuerman will provide the Broncos with a physically dominant red zone threat, which they didn’t have this year since Demaryius Thomas wasn’t himself and Owen Daniels certainly isn’t Julius Thomas caliber. The Broncos know what they have in Heuerman is a possible special player, and he’s going to be a centerpiece of the offense moving forward.