Denver Broncos: 5 tight ends vying for one roster spot

The Denver Broncos are going to have to make some tough roster moves at the tight end position in 2020. Who is fighting for their roster life?

The Denver Broncos are about to have quite the roster competition in the 2020 offseason.

For the first time in what feels like forever, the Broncos actually have some depth on both sides of the ball. One of the most interesting position battles for final roster spots will be at tight end.

Heading into the 2020 offseason, it was expected that the Broncos could potentially look into upgrades or NFL Draft dart throws at the tight end position, but any of that was a very distant secondary importance to pretty much everything else.

With Noah Fant showing down the stretch in 2019 what he is capable of as a featured option in the passing game at tight end, the Broncos decided to sign veteran Nick Vannett to a two-year free agent contract as well as draft Missouri’s Albert Okwuegbunam in the fourth round of the 2020 NFL Draft.

Those two moves have put the roster status of five guys in question:

• Andrew Beck
• Jake Butt
• Jeff Heuerman
• Troy Fumagalli
• Austin Fort

How many tight ends will the Broncos keep? There has been a lot of talk about the fact that Pat Shurmur doesn’t use a lot of two-tight end sets in his offense, but no one really has any clue what Shurmur’s going to do given the Broncos’ decision to sign Vannett and draft Okwuegbunam. He might use more two-tight end sets than we think.

It makes sense to work under the assumption that four tight ends will make the final roster.

Let’s take a look at each of these players and what these guys bring to the table. Who is going to be on the Broncos in 2020 and who’s going to be heading elsewhere?

Jeff Heuerman

After injuries plagued him his first four years in Denver, Jeff Heuerman showed enough flashes in the last two years of his rookie deal and got a two-year contract from the Broncos in 2019.

Despite his contract being fairly modest, some felt that Heuerman getting re-signed was a surprise, but he had a strong season in 2018 with 31 receptions. He followed that up in 2019 by catching 14 passes and a touchdown against the Houston Texans.

Heuerman’s involvement in the passing game is not going to earn him any trips to the Pro Bowl, but he’s good at the dirty work and does a great job in the running game as a blocker.

There’s no question that the Nick Vannett signing put Heuerman’s roster candidacy in jeopardy. Vannett and Heuerman were once teammates at Ohio State, drafted in the third round one year apart.

There’s no doubt Heuerman can be an asset as a blocker, but everyone wants Heuerman to do things like this more frequently than once every four years

Right now, Heuerman is going to have to really elevate himself to make the Broncos’ roster over Nick Vannett, whose brand-new contract all but guarantees him a spot.

Jake Butt

Everyone’s been rooting for Jake Butt now for over three years, but entering his contract year with the Broncos, something’s gotta give.

Butt was an All-American tight end at Michigan, in line to become a top 64 draft pick in 2017, and then he tore his ACL in Michigan’s 2016-17 bowl game against Florida State.

Since coming to the Broncos, he has struggled to stay healthy, tearing his ACL again in 2018 after coming back for a couple of games to open the season.

In 2019, he saw a brief bit of preseason action and felt he had turned a corner before another knee procedure put him out for all of 2019.

He has now missed the majority of the first three years of his rookie contract with the Broncos, and there’s no certainty he will be able to stay healthy for any sort of extended period of time.

In order to make the Broncos’ final roster, Butt is going to have to clear the offseason program, training camp, and preseason with an absolutely clean bill of health.

There are other players who could be valuable to the Broncos, so keeping Butt around has to be the right call, not just the sentimental one.

It would be tremendous if he could re-establish himself, and what a story that would be. Butt has tremendous ability as a receiver and there’s no question the Broncos love him. Why else would he still be on the roster at this point?

Both the Broncos and Butt have to understand that this is a make-or-break offseason for the former fifth-round pick, and there’s no question if he could stay healthy it would give the Broncos an unforeseen boost in the passing game.

Austin Fort

Austin Fort signed with the Broncos out of Wyoming last year as an undrafted free agent, messed around, and almost made the team.

Anyone watching preseason play and in training camp could see that Fort had what it took to make an impact at the NFL level, if even just situationally, and then he tragically went down with a season-ending knee injury against the Seattle Seahawks on one of his biggest preseason plays.

Fort is another very athletic playmaker at the tight end position. He was once the quarterback at Wyoming before Josh Allen came along, and then Fort transferred away for a bit only to return to Wyoming and catch passes from Allen.

He’s going to have to prove he’s back fully from that knee injury he suffered in 2019, but Fort has a shot even with a new coaching staff. If he makes a habit of making plays again this offseason like he did last year, you never know what could happen.

Andrew Beck

If you’re looking for an odds-on favorite to win that last roster spot, it could very well be Andrew Beck.

The Broncos snatched Beck off of waivers from the New England Patriots, and in hindsight, it’s kind of crazy that New England didn’t keep him around.

Beck can play tight end or fullback for you, and he did both for the Broncos. He caught his first touchdown pass in the final game of the season against the Raiders, a little gift for all of the grunt work he had been doing throughout the year.

Beck played 230 snaps for the Broncos offensively last season to go along with 197 special teams snaps.

His usage offensively increased steadily as the season went along, and he proved his worth in a number of ways for the Broncos last season.

The fact that this guy can do so many things for your football team, not just offensively but also on special teams, is a huge plus in his favor. The only offensive player with more special teams snaps than Beck last year was wide receiver Fred Brown.

There’s no question about the fact that this guy adds value to the team. The Broncos will just have to decide if his versatility is a more valuable ‘specialty’ than someone else’s at the bottom of this group.

Troy Fumagalli

After losing his 2018 rookie season to injury, everyone hoped former Wisconsin tight end Troy Fumagalli could provide the Denver Broncos with some of that first-team All-Big Ten ability in his redshirt freshman campaign.

Fumagalli caught his first NFL touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings and it was a heck of a grab, too.

From 2015-19, the Broncos had certainly identified a ‘type’ at the tight end position. For the most part, their entire tight end room has been made up of former All-Big Ten players at the position. That remains the case today, with a couple of exceptions, but Fumagalli was a guy the Broncos had on their roster at the 2018 Senior Bowl and there was a coaching connection between tight ends coach Geep Chryst (at the time) and Fumagalli’s head coach at Wisconsin, Paul Chryst.

After losing his rookie season to injury, the odds were sort of stacked against Fumagalli. The Broncos had re-signed Heuerman and drafted Noah Fant in the first round, and now the odds seem even more stacked against him.

We’ll see what happens with Fumagalli this offseason, but he can play special teams (100 snaps in 2019) and contribute as a blocker and receiver.

It seems like a longshot, but it’s going to be really crazy to see what this tight end group is capable of if every guy is healthy and playing at full speed. At this point, that seems like an unreasonable expectation, but after years of being bitten by the injury bug, the stars could finally be aligning for the young Broncos tight ends, and a number of these guys could make it really tough for John Elway and Vic Fangio to make cuts.