Good pickup.

This could be a big factor….I wonder if it will be Simms or Berger.

He has a 43.0 career punting average, ranking fifth in the NFL since 1999 in gross (43.4) and net (36.6) averages

but a pretty decent temporary solution…

One thing that Berger provides is versatility. If, heaven forbid Prater should go down with an injury. Berger does have the ability to kick extra points and shorter field goals. I think Britton Colquitt could do the same and I still think he punted better in the preaseason so I wouldn’t be surprised if after this year Colquitt gets another shot. Priefer coached his brother Dustin at KC so you never know.

I feel a John Claytona article coming about how signing Berger is a panic move by McDaniels and a sign of the sure fire turmoil that is hanging around the Broncos. And he’ll ask why sign a veteran like Mitch Berger? Clearly Josh McDaniels doesn’t know how to build a football team. The releasing of Brett Kern will be a bigger mistake then Jay Cutler. Sure their 6-0 but who have they played, and the schedule gets much tougher from here. They could go 6-10 this season.

How could you let a future Pro Bowl punter like Brett Kern go???? Idiots!!!
I just bought a Brett Kern jersey…..
Look, only joking, but shows Jedi’s attention to detail and the teams wnat to be solid top to bottom. I like Kern and hope he gets a shot somewhere.

I don’t put much stock in the stats Football Outsiders come up with, but for what it’s worth, they rate the Broncos as the worst punting team in football. The only team even close is Carolina.

Yet another alum and classmate (although no classes together).

One thing that intrigues me is Berger’s ability to kick off, which ranked with Prater’s until his latest decrease. I don’t know if Berger still has the power to drive kickoffs into the endzone, which he did when he was a Viking in the 90s, but it’s a nice attribute to possess given Prater’s latest problems.

Berger has always showed good hang time, from what I can recall. A quick look at his career statistics shows some exceptional years, although we don’t know if he retains that level of ability. He was released by the Steelers last year after chronic hamstring problems, which presumably made him unavailable at times (or else hurt his ability to perform).

Just an aside — official NFL statistics show Kern’s problem (one of them), but it requires careful reading. One statistic is the average net yards of a punt (without return), and we ranked among the leaders. Going to the column farther to the right is the statistic for average punt with return yardage subtracted — and we rank among the worst. In other words, our punts travel farther than most team’s but the change in field position is less than that of most teams’ punts.

Pardon the awkward phrasing but the gist of the situation is that long punts are yielding long returns. This could be a coverage issue but we know that Kern’s line drive punts were often reaching the KR sooner, which led to the short average net. Kern was actually lucky on some of his longest punts, since the ball was hard to receive and traveled farther once it landed on the ground. The only important statistic is the net yardage yielded (including return). Poor coverage contributes to this, in some cases, but a significantly poor hang time points to poor punting. Moreover, punters shouldn’t “outkick their coverage.” Consistently long punts that expose or create coverage problems aren’t good. And the return yardage yielded invariably skies when punters’ hang time is disproportionately low compared to the their distance traveled. Perhaps we’d understand this issue better if height was recorded along with length (traveled w/o return) and the ratio of the two was also recorded.

He’s big enough to handle tackling duties too. If I recall, he has a few ST highlight tackles.

Now im schrewed.

but anytime you can enhance your team, strike while the iron’s hot. No, once again, McDaniels is a genius because he knows the vast importance of special teams. I’ve finally prevailed upon the high school coach in my community to believe in this and I’m training my cousin to be a kicker. He almost made a 55-yard field goal in a freshmen football game last week so perhaps I’m grooming the next Jason Elam. He loves the Broncos as well, so it’s perfect!

How about a statistic that measures the ratio of gross to net punt average? That seems like it would be useful.

Prater a little harder, his kickoffs are poor at best, for a guy who is supposed to have a good leg and gets to kick at altitude alot. Why he doesn’t kick them out of the end zone every time in Mile High is sad.

The game was close throughout and field position was huge for both teams. The Broncos, on two different occasions, saw possessions stall around the Chargers’ 40-yard line. I call that “Plus” field position. While it stinks the Broncos fell short of a scoring opportunity, flipping field position can be huge, especially with the Broncos D. Both times, Kern was unable to force a fair catch inside the 20. Sure, I would love the ball to be downed at the 1-yard line, but acceptable would be a towering kick that Sproles is forced to Fair Catch around the 10. Again, the difference between a touchback (placed at the 20) and a fair catch is 10 yards, or one first down.

Any time you punt on your opponent’s side of the field you deserve to lose ;p.

I like it!

I haven’t seen enough of Kern to appreciate how bad he was doing, but I would be wary of Berger. We had some other special teams issues while he was with us, but his lack of consistancy should be a concern. I don’t think you will find too many fans on our side that were sad to see him go.

We don’t even need him cause we are going to score on every offensive possession !! RIGHT GUYS!!

As a Steelers fan, I’m thrilled you guys signed Berger. You are going to be calling for Bucky Dilts soon.

Berger was the weakest link on last year’s team. I still remember the play where he actually hit the ground with his foot before he hit the ball. Berger was acknowledged as scrappy, but he was not a good kicker. I will be surprised if he is on the roster at the end of the year.