Punters - The Unappreciated Position

by Toonafeesh on Mar 13, 2010 3:01 AM MST

Punters - The Unappreciated Position

I have to admit it, the only position I have never thought too much about until last year is the Punter. Denver has always had a decent Punting crew with great players such as Mike Horan and Tom Rouen. Heck, even Todd Sauerbrun had a good punt, he just had other problems. Up until last year, we have always been at least decent.

The last few years though, it seems as if our punting crew fell off the face of the planet. I liked Colquitt and Kern for their preseason job, but when it came to the real season, Kern could not hold up to his prior performance. That is when they brought in Mitch Berger, which wasn't any better than the others. In my opinion, Berger is past his prime and is in serious need of retirement.

I am not saying Mitch Berger is a horrible punter, but after seeing how this has affected the Denver Broncos last year, this has become a bigger concern to me. Berger is not bad, but I want better. I am not saying I want Shane Lechler (Stupid Raiders), but I want a better punter than is current, so I need to look at who is available and what we need to do to get any of these punters.

The only punter in free agency that is worth anything whatsoever is Daniel Sepulveda and his stats are about the same as Berger’s. I think the only route the broncos could possibly go would be to draft a young fresh punter that is going to be the punter of the future. I know, nobody ever calls a punter the punter of the future, but give me some credit, I mean I am writing an article on punters......

Player		G	GS	Punts		Yds	Net Yds	Lng	Avg	Net Avg	IN 20	TB	FC	Ret	RetY	TD
Mitch Berger	10		0	51	2,142		1,933	65	42.0	37.9	13	2	12	23	169	0
Shane Lechler	16		0	96	4,909		4,210	70	51.1	43.9	30	12	13	63	459	0
Daniel Sepulveda	16		0	72	3,074		2,669	60	42.7	37.1	29	4	18	33	325	0

Punters in the draft

The stats I could find for the players in the draft were not as in depth as the ones for the NFL players, but we can see what we have to work with anyway. There are a couple of decent players in the draft that are potentially worthwhile to consider.

Player	PUNTS	Avg.	YDS	LONG	Projected Round
Matt Dodge	73	43.9	3207	73	5-6
Jeremy Boone	53	43.3	2296	66	6
Zoltan Mesko	52	44.5	2312	66	6-7

My personal opinion is to wait until the 6th round and see how things are going with punters. Zoltan makes a tempting target for me (not just because I like his name) because he is a great punter and very underrated for his position and who doesn’t love the name Zoltan. He is a big guy (6’5" 236 lbs) and can definitely boom out the punts. I am sure he needs some additional assistance from a more experienced punter in the NFL. He has a lot of upside and not so much on the downside; he is big enough to make a tackle in the open field if needed and strong enough to get the ball downfield. For a 7th round pick, he might be worth a look.

This is a Fan-Created Comment on MileHighReport.com. The opinion here is not necessarily shared by the editorial staff of MHR

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Comments

colquitt plus some FAs shoot it out

Its probably Colquitt’s place to lose at the moment, though I imagine we’ll bring in some competition in training camp

Can’t really see Sepulveda as a huge leap over Berger, although many of their stats above are similar, the avg yards per return are too high for Sepulveda at just shy of 10yds per return, Berger and Lechler are closer to 7yds per return.

Although not all of that is on the punter, those few yards can make a big difference.

and the sing along songs will be our scriptures - we gotta stay positive!

by Orange & Blue Badger on Mar 13, 2010 7:35 AM MST reply actions

nice find on Dodge!

and great post.

Punters catch a lot of crap because nobody ever wants to see them play. But when your game is about field position and defense, you gotta have a money guy there.

"All we're trying to do is win the *********** game!" -- Josh MF McDaniels tearing into his offensive line after three false starts in the red zone. The tirade turned the tide of the game, and the Broncos dominated from that point on.

by broncosmontana on Mar 13, 2010 9:52 AM MST reply actions

One of the biggest concerns

for this offseason and one that deserves to be discussed. However, even though we all agree Berger should go, nobody remembers we signed two already. The battle for punter will be between Colquitt, Trapasso and any we can get to come in and compete with them as an undrafted rookie. More than likely we will pick the wrong one though and struggle again with it. It sure was an eye opener this year how important they are.

by Digger24 on Mar 13, 2010 10:07 AM MST reply actions 1 recs

I believe Colquitt's

only setback is his slow windup. Also, the premiere stats to look at on a punter are Hang Time and Net average. They can boom it all they want but if they out kick the coverage, it won’t mean much. That is why Hang Time is more important. The coverage unit as a whole can determine the net. i.e., hang Time = personal stat, and net avg.= team stat.

Speaking of which. Would you happen to have the HT and Net of these possible draftees that you list Toonafeesh?

Character may be manifested in the great moments but it is made in the small ones -- Philip Brooks

by KaptainKirk on Mar 13, 2010 10:08 AM MST reply actions 1 recs

That's so true kirk and very important indeed...Thanks Toona for the post..

by bfree2bronc on Mar 13, 2010 2:22 PM MST up reply actions

I would love to see us find a punter like the Billy Van Heusen type.

For those who are too young to remember, Van Heusen was Denver’s Punter back in the early 1970’s. He also was a good WR and holder for the Kicker. He gave Denver a legitimate threat to run from those formations and even completed a pass once from both the FG and Punting positions.
The big thing for me is that gives us another slot for another player, plus other teams have to gameplan for a real threat in the Special Teams category besides the returner. Having a threat on that end would help our return game because the punt rush and FG rush would be slowed down a hair with the constant threat of a fake by a good athlete back there.

Make those miracles happen - Jon Keyworth

by IgorBStrange on Mar 13, 2010 1:43 PM MST reply actions

I appreciate the post

always good to look at the lesser publicized aspects of the team

I agree, Larsen shouldn’t get any bigger. I am getting tired of his bone crushing hits knocking the pixels off my TV, once they fall to the floor they are very hard to find.

by Arctic Bronco on Mar 14, 2010 11:05 AM MDT reply actions