Broncos roster review: Punter Sam Martin

The Denver Broncos acquired Sam Martin prior to the 2020 season. Sam Martin signed a 3 year, $7,050,000 contract with the Denver Broncos, including a $1,450,000 signing bonus, $2,000,000 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $2,350,000. In 2022, Martin will earn a base salary of $2,250,000, while carrying a cap hit of $2,733,334 and a dead cap value of $483,334. According to overthecap.com, Martin is the 9th highest paid punter in the league for 2022.

Punter Sam Martin
Height: 6-1
Weight: 211
Experience: 10
College: Appalachian State
Age: 32

I chose to write up the roster review for Martin, because I do a full-league punting analysis every off-season. In 2021, Martin was the 8th best punter in the league in terms of maximizing field position for his team (what I can average punt percentage, which you can read about in the linked article).

In most other metrics Martin was in the top third of the league for punters in 2021.

• inside the 20 % - 8th
• inside the 10 % - 10th
• inside the 5 % - 11th
• touchback % - 10th
• fair catch % - 4th
• precision punt percentage (inside 10% - touchback %), PPP - 7th

Based solely on performance it would appear that Martin’s job for the 2022 Broncos is fairly secure particularly since he was much better for the Broncos in 2021 than he was in 2020.

The only reason that Martin might lose his spot to Corliss Waitman is to save money, but there would not too much savings to move on from Martin. Waitman would make $825k plus Martin’s $483k dead money means that net savings to move on from Martin would only be about $1.5MM for 2022. That’s not a whole lot of money if the Broncos end up in a situation where they need to sign a veteran free agent to replace someone who was injured in training camp.