Broncos Lose Ohio State TE Jeff Heuerman To An ACL Injury

With two days of their rookie minicamp now in the books, the Pittsburgh Steelers have been fortunate when it comes to injures

“None to speak of,” head coach Mike Tomlin said Saturday after practice when asked if there are any injuries that he’s aware of.

While the Steelers have been lucky so far on the injury front a few other NFL teams can’t say the same thing.

Just one day after the Jacksonville Jaguars lost their first-round draft pick, Florida defensive end Dante Fowler Jr., to a torn ACL, it was reported Saturday afternoon that the Denver Broncos third-round selection, Ohio State tight end Jeff Heuerman, will also miss his rookie season after tearing his ACL during a Saturday practice.

According to Jeff Legwold of ESPN.com, Heuerman was running in a non-contact special teams drill when he was injured and that players weren’t even wearing helmets.

“I feel terrible for Jeff and this is a very unfortunate situation,” Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak said. “Jeff was going to be a big part of our team this year, and he’s still going to be a big part of our team and organization in the future.”

The Steelers brought Heuerman in for a pre-draft visit a few weeks ago and also attended his March pro-day. While they might have had interest in drafting him, there’s likely a good chance they didn’t have him rated as a third-round player on their big board.

During his career at Ohio State, the 6-4, 252-pound Heuerman started 35-of-50 games and caught 52 passes for 792 yards with seven touchdowns.

While the Steelers decided to pass on Heuerman in the third-round, they did ultimately grab a tight end a few rounds later when they selected Penn State product Jesse James with the 24th overall selection of the fifth-round.