How Broncos fullback Andrew Beck is getting up to speed for a significant Week 1 role

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Andrew Beck, one of the new arrivals to the Broncos this week, wears a tight end’s number: 83. He started 30 games at that position over the course of his four seasons playing at the University of Texas, earning first-team All-Big 12 honors in his redshirt senior season last year.

He lined up with the fullbacks this week. He lined up with the fullbacks in his previous stop, New England.

Forget about the number and the background: In his first regular-season NFL game, Beck will be a fullback.

And in going from the Patriots to the Broncos this week via waivers, he went from the team that ranked second in fullback snaps last year to the one that ranked third — and imported its new offensive coordinator, Rich Scangarello, from the 49ers. With Kyle Juszczyk leading the way, San Francisco led the league in snaps by a fullback last year, using him on 62.7 percent of its offensive plays.

The fullback may be an endangered species in the NFL, but in Beck’s two pro venues to date, it’s alive and well. Other than those three teams, only the New Orleans Saints used a fullback for more than 20 percent of their 2018 snaps.

All expectations were that the Broncos would use their fullback more often this year, ensuring that four-year veteran fullback Andy Janovich factored heavily into the Broncos’ plans for the season. He still does, even as he works in shorts during practice to rehabilitate from a strained pectoral muscle.

But they didn’t want to abandon using the fullback while he recovers. They gave undrafted rookie George Aston a long look in the preseason, but he didn’t develop as quickly as they needed. They still have the option of using tight ends Jeff Heuerman and Troy Fumagalli in a pinch, but neither one is an ideal fit.

Enter Beck, who played 66 offensive snaps for the Patriots in the preseason — 57 of which saw him aligned in the backfield.

He was a long shot to make the Patriots. James Develin is one of the league’s most effective fullbacks and had the starting job locked down. New England wasn’t going to keep two fullbacks unless the 31-year-old Develin was hurt.

Knowing this, Beck worked. And when he wasn’t getting repetitions, he watched Develin.

Beck’s future didn’t lie at tight end or in New England. But while he was a Patriot, he found a model in Develin, a converted defensive lineman who bounced around practice squads and even other football leagues until he found a home.

“He understands the offense well enough to be able to make adjustments on the fly, which is a big thing,” Beck said. “That’s something I tried to learn there and I’m trying to learn here. It’s just something that you have to be able to do from that position.

“Coming out of the backfield, it never happens like it’s drawn up in the playbook. So to kind of make adjustments on the fly, understand the offense, understand what the guy behind you is going to do when he’s carrying the ball — those are the biggest things I’m trying to pick up right now. I think that’s what makes great fullbacks.”

Adjusting to how the running back attacks a carry is one of the biggest tasks for Beck, given that Phillip Lindsay, Royce Freeman and Devontae Booker have wildly contrasting styles.

“That’s very true,” Beck said. “It’s just kind of developing that rapport and the trust with those guys behind me that they know I’m going to pick up the blocks they expect me to. And it gets back to learning the offense and understanding the plays are designed to go here and here.”

Simply understand the plays leads to perhaps the primary task for Beck this week: absorbing a new scheme in a new language.

The nomenclature of the Patriots’ scheme dates back to the 1970s, when it was installed by then-offensive coordinators Ron Ehrhardt and Ray Perkins. The Broncos used this language from 2009-14, as then-head coach Josh McDaniels imported it from New England, and subsequent offensive coordinators maintained it as points of emphasis evolved.

Now the Broncos are back to the West Coast nomenclature, which they have used most often over the last quarter-century.

“It’s completely different,” Beck said. “It’s applying concepts that are similar, and if they’re not, then you flush the old and [go] in with the new, which is key. It’s something you have to do in this league all the time.”

The language is different, but concepts are similar, especially for the fullback. The fact that the 49ers and Patriots led the league last year in fullback snaps with two different offensive languages shows the versatility each one possesses.

“Conceptually, there are only so many ways you can run different plays. So it’s just learning the new name,” Beck said. “Every now and then, it’ll be like, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s what we called this,’ so I can kind of relate to how to do it.”

Sometimes that can be the best way to absorb a maximum number of concepts in order to be ready for Week 1.

“You get limited reps being here before we go out and play a game, so you have to relate it to the reps that you got somewhere else,” he said.

Whatever it takes to be a quick study is exactly what the Broncos need if they want to run their ideal offense: one that involves liberal use of the fullback.