Green Bay Packers May Lose Tory Humphrey for the Season

Tory Humphrey, the Packers third tight end on the depth chart, has suffered a broken forearm in Thursday's practice, requiring surgery. The team is waiting to see how the surgery goes before determining whether this will make Humphrey miss his second season in three years; clearly, he will miss significant time.

However, at this point, he has to be considered injury prone. The Packers will need to make decisions for his future and that of projected starter Donald Lee in the offseason.

In my position analysis this spring, this is what I wrote about Tory Humphrey:

Humphrey emerged as a serviceable second option at tight end last season after missing 2007 with a broken leg. Until 2008 he was solely a special teams contributor.

He is young enough he could develop a bit, and he is big (6'2", 255 pounds) and strong. He does well as a blocker in jumbo sets and has decent hands, but the reality is the 2005 free agent is not very athletic and not likely to ever be an impact player.

In a comment below, I added the following:

I don't think Humphrey has much potential—he's never going to be a starting TE in this league—but I think he MAY be retained because he will come cheap, maybe even minimum.

However, Humphrey did posses enough athleticism to have two of the three longest catches by a tight end in 2008. This, and his blocking prowess (he played offensive line in high school), made him the ideal third tight end.

True, that player is only on the field for a couple plays a game. But Humphrey will also be missed on special teams, an area the Packers have not been good enough in. The good news is he was not a major player on that unit.

In other words, I don't think this will impact the team's performance significantly. In fact, it may allow our other tight ends an opportunity to see if they can fill in—players who may have potential Humphrey does not appear to have. For more on those players, check out my colleague Al Bracco's piece.