Demoted to the jeans team early in the season and with no apparent promotion to a game-day uniform in his immediate future, Broncos receiver Todd Devoe accepted the lesser of two evils Friday.
He was released by the Broncos, putting him out of a job, but also providing him the freedom to pursue what he hopes will be a better opportunity to play.
“We’re looking at this as the glass being half-full,” said Josh Kaufmann, Devoe’s agent. “We don’t think it will take long before he’s picked up.”
Releasing Devoe gives the Broncos two openings on their 53-man roster. Another vacancy was created when safety Sam Brandon suffered a season-ending knee injury Sunday at Pittsburgh and he was moved to the injured reserve list.
The Broncos are planning on filling their roster voids by moving up two players from their practice squad before Sunday’s game at Oakland. Considering the multiple injuries on defense, the Broncos’ top candidates for a promotion are defensive linemen Antwon Burton or Amon Gordon, and linebacker Cameron Vaughn.
Devoe, 26, bounced between practice squads with Baltimore, Tennessee and Miami before catching on with the Broncos before last season. He had nine receptions, including a 44-yard catch-and-run touchdown to help the Broncos put away the Philadelphia Eagles on Oct. 30, 2005.
But Devoe hadn’t dressed in uniform on game day since a season-opening loss at St. Louis. It was the Broncos’ struggles in the kick-return game that buried Devoe on the depth chart, as the Broncos first signed Quincy Morgan and then promoted Brian Clark from their practice squad.
Morgan and Clark play the receiver position, which left Devoe as the 53rd man out. In recent weeks, as his game-day inactives mounted, Devoe had conversations through his representative with Broncos general manager Ted Sundquist.
“We didn’t point-blank say, ‘Please release him,”‘ Kaufmann said. “We just said, ‘If you’re going to keep him inactive the whole season and you have no plans to bring him back next year, then we wouldn’t mind if you released Todd so we can get started in another direction before the season ends.”‘
Plummer on Tillman
Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer has mixed feelings about his former team, the Arizona Cardinals, honoring his former college and pro teammate Pat Tillman with a statue and induction into Arizona’s ring of honor Sunday, when the Cardinals play the Dallas Cowboys at University of Phoenix Stadium.
Tillman, a Cardinals safety who turned down $3.6 million from the team to join the U.S. Army Rangers after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, was killed in Afghanistan in 2004. Initially reported as killed in the line of duty, an investigation later determined Tillman was a casualty of friendly fire, a fact the U.S. government initially covered up.
Plummer said he and Tillman, teammates at Arizona State and Arizona, hung out occasionally. When Tillman was a rookie, Plummer put him up for a couple weeks. Plummer last saw Tillman in Seattle before he went out for his last tour of duty.
“Tributes are awesome, but really his family isn’t going to feel any better and his friends aren’t going to be … there’s nothing you can do to bring him back,” Plummer said. “A tribute is really a constant reminder of what happened to him. But then you flip it and once you clear away what the government did, then you can start focusing on, ‘This guy was unique. This guy had morals and values and lived by them.”‘
And died by them.
“Exactly,” Plummer said. “Right now you look at him and you try to figure out what’s going on. But five, 10 years from now, you’ll look at his statue and some guy will have his kid there and he’ll go, ‘This guy right here, he was something special.”‘
Gold, Ekuban expected to miss Raiders
The Broncos downgraded to doubtful linebacker Ian Gold (hamstring), and defensive ends Ebenezer Ekuban (thigh) and Patrick Chukwurah (hamstring) on their injury report and coach Mike Shanahan said he did not believe those players would play in Oakland.
Foxworth fined
Broncos cornerback Domonique Foxworth was given a $7,500 fine and Pittsburgh linebacker James Farrior was docked $5,000 for illegal hits Sunday at Heinz Field.
Foxworth was penalized for his helmet-to-helmet hit on Steelers receiver Nate Washington. Farrior was caught kicking Broncos center Tom Nalen, who was on the ground at the time.
Mike Klis can be reached at 303-954-1055 or mklis@denverpost.com.
