With one preseason game left, the Denver Broncos are still staring at a special teams issue they haven’t cleaned up.
That third phase has been messy all summer, and the first two exhibition games haven’t offered much reason for optimism. The Broncos have had trouble with long snapping, field goals, punt and kick coverage, and even sent one kickoff out of bounds. The biggest red flag has come on returns: Denver allowed 28.8 yards per kick return to the Atlanta Falcons in preseason Game 1, then gave up 39.7 per return to the Green Bay Packers in Game 2.
Punt coverage has looked better, but the kickoff coverage has been rough enough to stand out. After Friday night’s loss to Green Bay, Sean Payton didn’t sugarcoat it.
“Obviously that wasn’t good enough," head coach Sean Payton said after Friday night's loss to the Packers. "There weren’t a lot of things...
I said this after the game-just pick a topic. Pick penalties, we lose there, kickoff, kickoff return, we lose that battle; rushing numbers, we lose that...
You can’t not pay attention to these games, these scrimmages, these important steps towards the start of the regular season.”
Some of the players handling those preseason coverage snaps won’t be on the roster in September, but the names showing up there still matter. Devon Key and JL Skinner, both special teams regulars, have been involved in a lot of those reps, which makes the trend harder to ignore.
The Broncos are now in Darren Rizzi’s second season as special teams coordinator, after he spent the previous six years with the New Orleans Saints. Before Rizzi arrived, Denver had already been in solid shape on special teams under Payton, starting in 2023 with Mike Westhoff brought in as a third-phase specialist and Ben Kotwica running the unit.
That doesn’t mean the earlier setup was spotless. There were still breakdowns, and the most painful one came in Kansas City during Bo Nix’s rookie season, when Leo Chenal blocked a field-goal attempt and Denver wound up losing a game it had in reach.
Not long after that, Westhoff stepped away because of age and health, while Kotwica stayed on. Together, the two had some real wins, too, including Marvin Mims Jr. earning Pro Bowl and All-Pro recognition in 2023 and 2024 as a returner.
After the 2024 season, Payton let Kotwica go. At the time, it was a surprise. Looking back, it appears to have been a move to make room for Rizzi, who was about to be available.
Payton hired Rizzi soon after, and one of his first jobs was helping identify and draft punter Jeremy Crawshaw. Denver used a sixth-round pick on the Australian-born punter, making sure it landed him instead of trying to beat the market for him as an undrafted free agent.
Crawshaw had a rocky start as a rookie, but he settled in and looks set for a bigger Year 2. Rizzi’s first season also brought a twist for Mims: for the first time in his young career, he didn’t pick up any returner honors, even though he averaged 15.6 yards per punt return, scored a touchdown, and averaged 26.3 yards per kick return.
There were bright spots, though. Wil Lutz thrived after reuniting with Rizzi in Denver and was a major reason the Broncos won so many close games. He was excellent in clutch moments, drilling one game-winning field goal after another during the 2025 season, and he played a big role in Denver’s 11-game winning streak.
Key also made a strong statement under Rizzi, setting a new franchise record for special teams tackles and earning first-team All-Pro honors as a third-phase ace. So the Rizzi era has already produced both headaches and clear success stories.
Still, the preseason coverage problems are hard to miss, and there’s only one more chance to clean them up before the games start counting. The Broncos’ preseason finale against the Minnesota Vikings is Friday, and then the roster has to be cut to 53 players by August 30.
That means players like Miles Scott, Parker Robertson, Tycen Anderson, Brent Austin, Sean Fresch Jr., Dallen Bentley, Taurean York, and others will get one more shot to make their case. Denver needs that group to show something after the depth players looked so lost in last week’s 30-13 loss to the Packers.
As for Rizzi, the wait continues for the kind of clear breakthrough that makes Payton’s decision to move on from Kotwica feel obvious. One thing is certain, though: Payton believes in him, and that trust matters.
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What made the evaluation trickier was the blend of encouraging development and uneven execution across the board. Some players held up better than they had in earlier preseason action, while others left their depth chart cases feeling more complicated after a night that included notable positional shifts and a few standout individual plays. For a Broncos roster trying to sort out the back end, the Packers game only sharpened the competition instead of clarifying it. [Read more 🡒]