The Broncos are in the market for help at tight end.
Where, ultimately, Denver finds it at this point is an open question.
The Broncos, at the moment, are down to two healthy players on their 53-man roster in Evan Engram and Adam Trautman, and a pair of project-types on their practice squad in rookie Caleb Lohner and Patrick Murtagh.
Sean Payton’s offense has seen its depth dwindle quickly in recent days.
Lucas Krull originally hoped to return from injured reserve after the minimum four weeks due to a foot injury, but instead, he ended up having surgery Monday to repair a metatarsal fracture. He’s now expected to miss in the neighborhood of eight more weeks, a source told The Denver Post, which means most of the remaining regular season.
Nate Adkins, meanwhile, sustained a left knee injury in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s win against Dallas. The injury appeared to happen without contact on a play that resulted in a touchdown pass from Bo Nix to Troy Franklin. The severity of Adkins’ injury has not been revealed.
The Broncos, though, attempted to address their depth at the position Monday when, multiple sources confirmed to The Post, they put in waiver claims for both Ben Sims and Brenden Bates.
Sims had been waived by Green Bay and Bates by Houston.
Denver, however, lost out on both because teams higher in the waiver priority — Minnesota and Cleveland, respectively — also put claims in and thus were awarded the players.
So now Denver is looking for other routes to fill the position. One part of the equation is that Trautman will likely see his playing time increase again.
The veteran played just 30.9% of Denver’s offensive snaps against the New York Giants in Week 7, tied for his lowest usage in two-plus seasons with the Broncos. He’d seen an overall decline in playing time as Adkins got up to speed after a training camp ankle injury that cost him the first two games of the season.
Adkins had been playing between 30-40% of Denver’s offensive snaps and provided some versatility — an ‘F’ tight end who could play out of the backfield, in the passing game and as a blocker.
“He’s too good of a football player for us. We’re going to need him,” Payton said at the outset of the season when Denver opted not to put him on injured reserve.
Now the Broncos may have to examine options externally.
They could look to a familiar face from training camp like Caden Prieskorn, who just recently signed with Cleveland’s practice squad.
Or they can try to work via the trade market with the NFL’s trading deadline just a week away.
Among tight ends around the league who have reportedly drawn interest, could be available or generally make sense as potential trade targets, is a list that includes Cleveland’s David Njoku, Baltimore’s Mark Andrews, Tennessee’s Chig Okonkwo, and New Orleans’ Taysom Hill and Foster Moreau. There are, of course, others around the league, including a pair Denver just faced in former Broncos veteran Chris Manhertz and Daniel Bellinger with the Giants. Bellinger is in the final year of his rookie deal and had the best game of his career against the Broncos.
Depth issues can force a team’s hand in making a move, but Payton has previously cautioned against the idea that a trade deadline acquisition can change a team’s fortunes.
There’s not much time to learn a system, and Payton, in particular, is protective of the locker room culture the Broncos have developed.
A year ago, before the deadline, he brought up similar points.
“My brother’s the worst at this,” he said then. “He’s the worst at free agency, and he’s the worst at the trade deadline. He just wants to see action. Then right after the action takes place, he never goes back and reflects and says, ‘Well, that was a bad signing,’ or, ‘That was a bad trade.’
“I kid him, but I think that there’s so much more that goes into it relative to whether you’re trading a player or acquiring a player.
“Contracts go into it, vision goes into it and the locker room goes into it. There are a lot of details that go into that.”
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