For Broncos kickers and punters, camp is a snap
By Chris Tomasson 
| August 3, 2009 | 9:28 AM
Kickers, punters and holders go through a different set of drills in training camp than most of their teammates. (Photo from Newscom)
Broncos running back Darius Walker looked over during a recent practice and scarcely could believe his eyes. The team’s kickers and punters were making tackles.
OK, let’s not get too carried away. They weren’t taking on any live bodies.
“I saw the kickers and the punters actually tackling dummies,’’ Walker said. “It took me by surprise.’’
That’s because when teammates look over at the kickers and punters, they often seen them standing around or playing with the football in some manner.
Sometimes what looks like simply passing the time during training camp is a drill. Broncos punter Brett Kern, also the team’s holder, was grabbing the ball Sunday and dropping it five inches into his other hand over and over again to work on his grip.
Then there was Britton Colquitt, a rookie free-agent punter, placing the ball on the ground and, using only his feet, trying to kick it up and catch it. Well, maybe that wasn’t an assigned drill.
“I don’t know what he was doing,’’ Kern said.
It’s understandable kickers and punters sometimes are looking for things to do during two-a-day workouts while other players are slaving away in pads in the hot sun. On Sunday afternoon, the Broncos wanted Kern and Colquitt to rest their legs, so they passed some of the time throwing balls back and forth to Michael and Wilson, the ballboy sons of special teams coach Mike Priefer.
It was kicker Matt Prater’s turn to work, although he wore shorts and no shoulder pads. On an adjacent field where Prater, Kern, Colquitt, long snapper Lonie Paxton and Priefer usually hang out away from other players, Prater worked on field goals and kickoffs.
The attendance on hand for the drills seemed to be two. While fans attending Broncos training camp walk past the kickers’ field, only a man and his young son appeared to stop and watch for any amount of time. They stayed for five minutes.
But you better believe that when Prater, Kern and Colquitt returned to the locker room, they heard from more than two people about their work day.
“All the time,’’ linebacker Spencer Larsen said about players ribbing kickers and punters during training camp. “We joke about the physical side when they come in. And, when we’re in meetings, they don’t have a lot of film to watch. They’re on their computers . . . We say to them (after practices), ‘Are you tired? Are you doing OK?’ We joke like that.’’
During training camp, these skinny guys wearing single digits are the envy of many. They don’t wear heavy pads. They don’t take hits.
“Kickers and punters have got the best job in the world,’’ Walker said.
Prater, though, begs to differ.
“They say we have the easiest job in their world until there’s two seconds left on the clock,’’ Prater said about when the game is on the line for a kicker.
It will be at least 1 1/2 months before Prater might be called upon for a pressure kick. In the meantime, Sunday afternoon at Dove Valley for kickers and punters looked like a Sunday afternoon at a Denver city park.
OK, other than practicing his kicking, Prater did do some work. He walked over to help adjust ropes that cordoned off the practice field.
While observers might wonder why kickers and punters don’t just bring their golf clubs to training camp in order to practice some chipping, they insist this is a very serious time.
“What we’re doing might not be as physically demanding, but we’re getting the work in just like everyone else,’’ Prater said.
If teams were working kickers and punters as hard as everyone else, that wouldn’t make much sense. There’s no reason for one’s leg to drop off by the opener.
After kicking Sunday afternoon, Prater was scheduled to rest at Monday morning’s workout. Kern and Colquitt were scheduled to resume drills after not doing any punting during either of Sunday’s two workouts.
Sounds as if it will be Prater’s turn to play catch with Michael and Wilson.
“We got the whole day off (Sunday from punting but), we did a lot of stuff,’’ Kern insisted. “We were holding, getting 55 to 60 snaps each (in Sunday morning’s workout).’’
Kern does have the pressure of trying to hold off Colquitt, the son of former NFL punter Craig Colquitt and brother of Kansas City punter Dustin Colquitt, for the starting job. Prater is the only kicker in camp but said he competes with himself to be near perfect.
Kern last season ranked fifth in the NFL with a 46.7-yard gross punting average. Prater made 25-of-34 field goals, scored 114 points and ranked fourth in the NFL by making five field goals of 50 yards or better.
That evidently was good enough to give the two the right to talk some trash themselves.
“We give it back (to teammates),’’ Prater said. “We tell the quarterbacks, ‘You got the easiest jobs out there. The second- and third-string quarterback, I’ll trade you jobs if you want. You hang out, stand on the sideline with a hat and a clipboard.’ ”
One thing the quarterbacks haven’t been seen doing lately is tackling. Not even dummies.
brett kern, britton colquitt, denver broncos, lonie paxton, matt prater
