Watson on IR; Broncos sign Kouandjio
The Broncos’ offensive line shuffle continues.
On Wednesday, the team placed starting right offensive tackle Menelik Watson on season-ending injured reserve and signed former Buffalo Bills offensive tackle Cyrus Kouandjio. Watson, who had been dealing with a calf injury that sidelined him for the Broncos’ Week 7 loss at Los Angeles, injured his foot Sunday in Denver’s loss at Philadelphia.
“He had a torn tendon in his foot, so it’s two options: With conservative treatment it would have been six to seven weeks; with surgery he was done,” Broncos coach Vance Joseph said. “So we thought as a team it was best for him to go down and to bring a fresh body in for us.”
Joseph said surgery for Watson isn’t definite, and that’s it up to him. But for the season, he was going to need an extensive amount of time to recover.
The Broncos signed Watson as a free agent in March to take over the starting job from Donald Stephenson, a 2016 free-agent acquisition who struggled in his first season with the Broncos with injury and performance. Watson signed a three-year, $18.375 million contract that included $5.5 million guaranteed at signing and an average annual salary of $6.125 million.
Watson spent the first four years of his NFL career in Oakland, where he dealt with a string of injuries that limited his time on the field. When he arrived in Denver, he expressed hope that the Broncos’ training staff could help him get physically healthy and stay on the field.
“Some players work through those issues, and most of his issues were soft-tissue stuff,” Joseph said. “It was hamstrings, it was calf injuries. So those things are preventable, so I wasn’t overly concerned when we signed Menelik because of his past of soft-tissue injuries.”
In his seven starts this season, Watson was charged with 7½ sacks allowed, per Stats.
Stephenson, who restructured his contract during the offseason to increase his guaranteed money to $2.5 million for 2017 and eliminate his salary for 2018, has missed the last two games because of a calf injury. And earlier in the season, the Broncos placed backup lineman Billy Turner on injured reserve with a hand fracture.
The spate of injuries on the line leaves Elijah Wilkinson as the Broncos’ only other fully healthy backup at tackle. Wilkinson was promoted to the active roster when Turner was placed on IR and has been active for one game but has played zero offensive snaps.
Kouandjio, a second-round pick by the Bills out of Alabama in 2014, started seven of 25 games in Buffalo over his first three seasons and was charged with only two sacks. The 6-foot-7, 325pound veteran started five games at left tackle in 2016, helping an offense that finished first in the NFL with 2,630 rushing yards and 29 rushing touchdowns.
“He is a big guy, a talent, a former second-round pick,” Joseph said. “He’s a young guy. It’s definitely worth bringing him in and looking at him. He’s a young guy with no miles on him.”
In June, Kouandjio signed a one-year contract with the Lions and competed with the team in preseason, but he was cut in late August as Detroit pared its final roster.
Having joined the Broncos only four days before the team faces the New England Patriots, Kouandjio appears unlikely to see much time at right tackle Sunday. In Watson’s absence, the Broncos are considering veteran Allen Barbre, who started in the lone game Watson missed, as well as Stephenson and Wilkinson among potential starters at the position.
The Broncos on Wednesday also re-signed offensive lineman Dillon Day to the practice squad and waived receiver Tim Patrick. Day signed with the Broncos as an undrafted free agent in 2015 and spent most of his two-plus seasons on the practice squad. He was waived Oct. 24 as the Broncos’ shuffled their roster to account for injuries, and was claimed by the Colts. Indianapolis waived Day on Monday.