Denver Broncos: Can Austin Fort be the comeback story of camp?
The Denver Broncos do not exactly have an over-abundance of depth at the tight end position into the month of June. A couple of offseasons ago, it seemed like the tight end position was overloaded with former high draft picks or decorated college prospects, but the unit has thinned out since 2019.
The Denver Broncos’ current tight ends on the roster are led by Noah Fant and Albert Okwuegbunam, the unquestioned TE1 and TE2 for the team as we project toward the 2021 season. Okwuegbunam is coming off of a season-ending knee injury in 2020 and has made his way to the practice field for OTAs, but we won’t know his official status until training camp. Still, things must be looking good for him to be out there for voluntary OTAs.
Fant also dealt with injuries a season ago, which is remarkable considering how well he played most of the season.
The Broncos chose to move on from former fifth-round picks Jake Butt and Troy Fumagalli this offseason as well as 2020 free agent acquisition Nick Vannett. The only moves the team has made thus far to supplement the position are signing Eric Saubert and undrafted free agent Shaun Beyer.
Even considering some of the injury issues the team had at tight end last season, Andrew Beck played less offense in Pat Shurmur’s system than Troy Fumagalli at tight end, and that was after Fumagalli was let go earlier in the offseason.
Although Beck has been a valuable special teams player, it’s fair to wonder how he fits in Shurmur’s offense as a tight end.
All of the circumstances considered, there seems to be a pretty significant door open for Austin Fort, a former undrafted free agent out of Wyoming (2019) who once looked destined for a 53-man roster spot.
Fort suffered a bad injury in the 2019 preseason on a big reception against the Seattle Seahawks, a 29-yard gain up the middle of the field. After being carted off the field, Fort was placed on injured reserve and spent a lot of his recovery during the 2019 season with outside linebacker Bradley Chubb, who also suffered a knee injury fairly early on in the 2019 campaign.
Coming back from that injury and competing again in the majority of 2020 training camp in the pandemic-affected offseason, Fort suffered a setback in his recovery in mid-August, which landed him on injured reserve.
At the time, his injury was considered up to eight weeks of recovery time, but obviously, the Denver Broncos didn’t pull him off of the reserve list.
Fort has basically been on ice for two seasons and faces an uphill battle to make the 2021 roster, to say the least, but the opportunity is certainly there.
We have talked about that same opportunity for a guy like undrafted free agent Shaun Beyer to come in and make the roster, but the reality is that Fort has as good of a chance as anyone if he can stay healthy.
It says a lot about what the Broncos’ front office thinks of Fort to not have let him go at this point. The reality is, he is a former undrafted free agent who didn’t have the most dominant college career, and has now suffered a major knee injury and a pretty significant setback in his recovery from that injury.
Talk about longshots.
That jersey number 89 still belongs to Austin Fort, two years later, which is really saying something about this guy’s potential.
We’ll have to see what updates the coaching staff can provide after OTAs and heading into training camp, but it would be a remarkable story to see Fort find his way onto the active roster for the Denver Broncos in 2021.