Broncos need tight ends’ hand for Keenum’s success

New quarterback would benefit greatly from help from receivers

When the pressure came for Case Keenum on third down last season, he had plenty of options as the internal clock began racing in his mind.

Keenum, who was introduced as the new Broncos quarterback last week, completed 63.8 percent of his third-down passes for Minnesota in 2017 — sixth best most among quarterbacks with at least 100 attempts.

“I understand how the flow of the game goes and knowing as a quarterback what’s important — third down, two-minute, red zone and those crucial situations that, as a rookie, you’re just trying to get the play off and get the ball down field,” Keenum said last week, explaining his meteoric rise as a starter in Minnesota last season.

Keenum in 2017 had the luxury of finding Adam Thielen, who was second in the NFL with 33 receptions on third down. Or he could target fellow wide receiver Stefon Diggs (18). And if those two were somehow swarmed, he could often count on tight end Kyle Rudolph (14) to squirm free.

The last option is significant because the Broncos have lacked a security blanket at tight end for the better part of three seasons. And with the departure of veteran Virgil Green, who signed with the Chargers as a free agent last week after seven seasons with the Broncos, Denver is facing even more uncertainty at a position that has become a hole in the offense ever since Julius Thomas caught a combined 24 touchdowns across the 2013 and 2014 seasons.

In fact, Rudolph’s 14 catches on third down alone last season were only three fewer than the number of total receptions the remaining tight ends on Denver’s roster caught in 2017 combined. If the Broncos are to maximize Keenum’s strong performance on third down, and improve from their own middle-of-the-pack conversion rate of 39 percent last season, establishing a weapon at tight end is crucial.

“(Keenum) had good people around him in Minnesota,” Broncos manager John Elway said. “We plan on getting good people around him here.”

That would seemingly put tight end toward the top of the Broncos’ offensive to-do list as free agency nears the end of its second week and the NFL draft looms a little more than a month away. It’s certainly not as if Elway has not made significant investments trying to find a go-to target at the position. In 2015, the Broncos spent their third-round draft choice on Ohio State’s Jeff Heuerman, a brutish and athletic 6foot-5, 255-pound tight end who closely resembles Ivan Drago. Even after Heuerman suffered a torn ACL during his rookie minicamp and then caught only nine passes in 12 games when he debuted in 2016, Elway entered 2017 optimistic about Heuerman’s potential.

“We’re looking at this year as Jeff’s coming-out year,” Elway said on the eve of last season’s training camp. “Hopefully he makes that big jump.”

The jump never came. Heuerman once again caught nine passes — this time in 14 games — and tallied just one more receiving yard (142) than he had in 2016. And though he caught the first two touchdown passes of his career, the evolution the Broncos envisioned never came to fruition.

Still, the Broncos have remained optimistic about the growth Heuerman could display with consistency at the quarterback position in place. But even bigger hopes may be pinned on Jake Butt, a 2017 fifth-round pick who never played as a rookie following the ACL tear he suffered in his final college game at Michigan. Throw in former undrafted player Austin Traylor (eight catches in 2017), and Denver is staring at the prospect of depending on a young player to emerge in order to solidify their tight end spot.

There are still a number of veteran players at the position the Broncos could add in free agency, but those viewed as the most impactful players in the free agent class — names like Trey Burton, Austin Seferian-Jenkins and Eric Ebron — have signed elsewhere. The draft will offer other options. Dallas Goedert of South Dakota State, Mike Gesicki of Penn State, Hayden Hurst of South Carolina and Mark Andrews of Oklahoma State are among the players who could be available when the Broncos are scheduled to select in the second round.

Broncos coach Vance Joseph insisted last week that the team’s roster was still “a work in progress.” But it increasingly appears as if the Broncos will be relying on young players to become a security blanket for their new quarterback.