Amid a crowd­ed Bron­cos tight end room fea­tur­ing starter Noah Fant, there’s a grow­ing belief rook­ie Albert Okwueg­bunam is a star-in-waiting.

Quar­ter­back Drew Lock called him a “mon­ster,” as did vet­er­an tight end Nick Van­nett. Enter­ing train­ing camp, the feel­ing was Okwueg­bunam might be in for some­what of a red­shirt year con­sid­er­ing Denver’s depth at the posi­tion with Fant, Van­nett, Jake Butt, Troy Fuma­gal­li and Andrew Beck. But Okwuegbunam’s con­sis­ten­cy in prac­tice may force him into the game plan Sept. 14 against Tennessee..

“He’s just so phys­i­cal­ly gift­ed,” Van­nett said. “The thing with him is he’s kind of raw right now, but I don’t say that in a bad way. I say that like if he keeps build­ing on it and keeps fig­ur­ing it out, he’s going to be one of the best tight ends in the league. Just how fast he is, how built he is — I real­ly do believe if he can fig­ure it out, he’s going to be a scary dude in this league for years to come.”

Select­ed in the fourth round (No. 118 over­all) of April’s draft, the hype around the 6‑foot‑5 Okwueg­bunam was imme­di­ate con­sid­er­ing he played with Lock for two years at Mis­souri. In 33 games togeth­er, the duo con­nect­ed for 17 touch­downs on 72 catch­es, and the tight end post­ed 98 catch­es for 1,187 yards.

“All the chem­istry we built up at Miz­zou has trans­lat­ed real­ly well,” Okwueg­bunam said. “(Lock) knows what I’m good at, and I know what he likes to see from a receiv­ing stand­point as far as routes and my demeanor when the ball’s in the air.”

Okwueg­bunam beefed up through­out col­lege to become an SEC force, and his 4.49-second 40-yard dash at the com­bine led all tight ends. Dur­ing camp, he’s showed how that speed can trans­late into sep­a­ra­tion, with a num­ber of touch­down grabs on both ver­ti­cal routes and in the red zone.

“I knew he could run,” tight ends coach Wade Har­man said. “I wasn’t sure he could run that fast.”

That speed and play-mak­ing abil­i­ty (near­ly a quar­ter of Okwuegbunam’s col­lege recep­tions went for scores) has been on dis­play through­out camp as Lock has re-con­nect­ed with his col­lege teammate.

“Open field, he’s going to blow by you,” Lock said. “In the red zone, it’s just kind of a sneaky fast. It doesn’t look like he’s mov­ing very quick then all of a sud­den he’s two yards behind the guy or slipped under­neath the guy somehow.”

Okwuegbunam’s biggest area of improve­ment he needs to make as a pro is his blocking.

Coach Vic Fan­gio not­ed the team needs “to find out what kind of block­er he is,” and said the tight end has made incre­men­tal progress in that regard.

“One of the biggest things with a tight end as it relates to block­ing is do they want to do it,” Fan­gio said. “Do they have the men­tal­i­ty to block and be pride­ful in it? He’s shown that he does and he’s will­ing. That’s a big hur­dle to get over for a lot of tight ends, espe­cial­ly for the ones com­ing out of col­lege these days that don’t do it much.”

Okwueg­bunam said he’s “real­ly hon­ing in on (the) tech­nique” of run block­ing dur­ing camp, and while he’s aware of the depth of the team’s tight end room, he’s aim­ing to still some­how make an impact this fall.

“As far as com­ing out and mak­ing plays, I felt like I’ve done a good job of that,” he said. “I still have improve­ments to make, but obvi­ous­ly I’d love to make an impact ear­ly, because that’s just the com­peti­tor I am. As far as that actu­al­ly being done, that’s not my decision.”

If 2020 ends up being more ing than play­ing for Okwueg­bunam, the 22-year-old said he would embrace that, too.

“Every rep in prac­tice, I’d make sure I’m con­tin­u­ing to make those same strides since I’ve got here,” Okwueg­bunam said. “And just (focus­ing) on being as men­tal­ly sound as pos­si­ble… Real­ly, it’s just about not treat­ing my prepa­ra­tion any differently.”