Report: Broncos' FB Andy Janovich out '6-8 weeks' with pectoral strain

The Denver Broncos were hit by the injury bug pretty severely in Thursday night's preseason bout vs. the Seattle Seahawks. Rookie TE Austin Fort tore his ACL and is done for the season.

We've been waiting to hear what the prognosis might be for fullback Andy Janovich, who left the game early in the first half, clutching his chest. According to 9NEWS' Mike Klis, Janovich suffered a pectoral strain and will miss '6-8' weeks.

As Klis reports, according to one source within the Broncos, Janovich's injury 'could have been worse'. A lot worse. We could be talking about a season-ending injury.

The Broncos will get Janovich back with plenty of the season left over for him to make a contribution. While he did dodge a bullet of sorts, it's still not the greatest turn on the wheel of karma, as Janovich is in a contract year.

If he's going to maximize his ability to earn a second contract, which for fullbacks, we know the ceiling is severely limited comparatively speaking, he needs to be on the field. There was some hope for him to grow as a skill player, touching the ball more on offense, as opposed to simply being a lead-blocker.

In the system Rich Scangarello came from in San Francisco, the Niners used the fullback as a full-blown wepaon out of the backfield. The Broncos' new OC, however, has a lot of mouths to feed in Denver, including the likes of Emmanuel Sanders, Courtland Sutton, Phillip Lindsay, Royce Freeman and now Noah Fant.

Janovich would have been one of the last guys at the table, from a touching-the-ball perspective. Fortunately for Denver, undrafted rookie George Aston, out of Pitt, is waiting and ready to step in for Janovich.

Built like a tank at 6-feet tall and 240 pounds, Aston's brief moving forward will likely be, see linebacker, hit linebacker. The Broncos won't put much more on his plate than that.

The Janovich injury forces the Broncos to do some roster math in the meantime. 6-8 weeks would put Janovich's availability somewhere in late September, early October.

The team might not want to put him on the Injured Reserve with designation to return, because it would mean Janovich would be shelved for eight weeks to open the season by NFL rule. However, if the Broncos IR'd him, they could temporarily fill his roster spot with a replacement, like George Aston.

Janovich wouldn't go on the Physically Unable to Perform list (PUP) because he's participated in training camp. By NFL rule, once a player participates in camp, the PUP list is no longer an option. It's for players injured late in the previous year, or during the spring, which is why teams have to be very careful and deliberate about just throwing a recovering player out there during camp.

The timetables aren't really matching up for the Broncos to justify putting Janovich on IR. More likely, he'll just sit and rehab, attend his meetings, etc, while the Broncos ask a player from the tight end corps to step in and play a little H-back.

If the Broncos do it that way, instead of rostering both Janovich and Aston on the 53-man roster (which isn't going to happen one way or another), it would allow the team more freedom to use that spot that would have gone to Aston on another position.

We'll see how it shakes out. Unfortunately, not only are the Broncos losing out on Janovich's fullback acumen, but also his contributions on special teams, which are significant.

Follow Chad on Twitter @ChadNJensen.