Horse Tracks: Broncos special teams looking to improve

After the Broncos ugly performance on special teams against the Seahawks, the special teams unit worked on covering kicks during practice all week. Safety and Special Teams ace David Bruton says that their struggles last week was a learning experience for the unit.

"It's a learning experience for us as a unit. We have a lot of young guys out there and a lot of guys. It's their first time under the lights, and against a good team, a team that has been in the Super Bowl two years running. We just have a lot of corrections that we have to make and eliminate the thinking. Just like on offense and defense, if you're thinking a lot, you're going to play slow, and I feel like we have a lot of young guys thinking a lot, so we didn't play as fast as we could. We definitely put an emphasis on that. Just playing free ball and just running through stuff and trying to make a play."

Bruton says they have to "hit the film study harder" and study their opponent and themselves on film so they can approve.

"We game plan all the time. It's not just go out there, run and try to hit somebody. There are schemes that you have to know, there are certain guys that you have to try and eliminate and you pick up tendencies, just like on offense and defense. So we just have to hit the film study a little harder, study not just our opponents, but ourselves and learn from that."

A lot of players who are fighting for a roster spot have to prove themselves on Special Teams, so hopefully we will see some improvement from this unit during tonight's game against the Houston Texans.

All eyes on the Kickers and Punters:

Another area of Special Teams that we all will be focusing on is the kicking, punting, and kickoff battles.

Connor Barth and Brandon McManus both looked good last week, but McManus has the edge in the kick off department. Barth showed improved leg strength but was kicking line drives with little hang time that lead to returns. So the performance of both kickers will be important to their future with the team.

It looks like Colquitt will be the punter, but a good showing by recently acquired Spencer Lanning could push him for the job. Lanning also can kickoff, and looked impressive during practice this week, so this will be an interesting battle to watch.

Horse Tracks:

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