What will Sam Martin bring to the Broncos?

DENVER — It’s not that the Broncos haven’t had good punters in their midst in recent years.

In 2019, three Broncos who wore orange and blue at some point in the previous 10 seasons finished in the NFL’s top 10 in net punting average. Riley Dixon was fourth, Brett Kern was fifth and Britton Colquitt was eighth. Each finished in the league’s top 10 in avoiding touchbacks. In gross punting average, punts placed inside the 20-yard line and punts that were not returned, none were outside the top 20 of 32 punters that punted at least 30 times last year.

If you take their rankings in those five key stats, add them up and calculate the mean, Brett Kern finished first in the league, with an average ranking of 7.0. That justifies his selection as the first-team All-Pro punter. Dixon was fifth, with an average ranking of 8.8. Colquitt was sixth, with an average ranking of 11.2.

The newest Bronco, Sam Martin, didn’t quite stack up to them last year.

His average ranking in those stats was 17.6 because it was weighed down by an unusually high touchback percentage. Seven of his 76 punts went into the end zone, placing him 30th. But in the four other categories, he was right near the middle of the curve:

• Gross average: 17th
• Net average: 13th
• Percentage of punts that were not returned: 14th
• Punts inside the 20 percentage: 14th

With that average ranking of 17.6, he was 15th overall. Again, right around the middle.

Martin’s 2019 wasn’t just average among all punters. It was average for his career. Among his seven full seasons as Detroit’s punter, Martin’s 2019 gross average of 45.3 yards was the fifth-best of his career. His net average of 41.8 yards was fourth. His no-return percentage was second. His inside-the-20 percentage was third. His touchback percentage was fifth.

So you know what you are getting with Martin.

With an average annual contract value of $2.35 million based off a $7.05-million, three-year deal reported by NFL.com’s Mike Garofalo, Martin’s average-per-year outlay will rank 16th among punters, per Spotrac.com. Again, average.

But average is better than what the Broncos have had with Colby Wadman the last two years.

Because while Martin had an average campaign among NFL punters in a season that was around his career average, Wadman posted the following rankings and numbers in 2019:

• Gross average: 44.4, 25th
• Net average: 39.4, 27th
• Punts not returned percentage: 58.9, 19th
• Punts inside the 20 percentage: 37.2, 21st
• Touchback percentage: 5.1, 16th

That gave Wadman an average ranking of 21.6. Only two punters among the 32 with at least 20 punts were worse. The Broncos already sent an offseason message to Wadman by signing Trevor Daniel, who had limited work for the Texans last year before being cut, punting 11 times.

The net average and inside-the-20 rate were the most concerning metrics of Wadman’s resume. He doesn’t possess the NFL’s strongest punting leg, so he needed to make up for it with placement.

Sometimes, coverage let him down. At others, he didn’t get enough hang time. As Broncos special-teams coordinator Tom McMahon explained last season, a good guideline is a tenth of a second for every yard, so you want a 45-yard punt to remain in the air for at least 4.5 seconds.

Meanwhile, Daniel’s 2019 work was rough. If he had been considered among the 32 punters measured, he would have been near the bottom in most statistics, albeit with a small sample size. A year earlier, he ranked 27th in gross average and 23rd in net average.

A Wadman-Daniel competition would have been a coin flip, and Daniel’s resume was not enough to take punter off the list of pressing needs for the Broncos heading into the draft. Punters such as 2018 Ray Guy Award winner Braden Mann of Texas A&M, Arizona State’s Michael Turk, Florida’s Tommy Townsend and Bucknell’s Alex Pechin were on the radars of punter-needy teams like Denver.

But Martin’s resume and relative consistency almost certainly erases the Broncos from the punter discussion in the upcoming draft.

Sure, Martin isn’t among the league’s elite punters. Yet he is a clear upgrade.

Martin’s metrics should improve at elevation. On five punts in Denver during the Lions’ visit last December, he posted a net average of 43.8 yards and a gross average of 52.2 yards — 3.9 and 6.7 yards, respectively, better than his average at games played within 1,500 feet of sea level over the last four seasons.

Consider these numbers to measure the impact of elevation on punting:

There have been 336 punts over the last four seasons at the NFL’s two high-elevation venues: Empower Field at Mile High and Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. The gross and net averages, respectively, are 47.6 and 42.3 yards at those venues.

At the other NFL stadiums since 2016, the gross average is 2.2 yards fewer (45.4) and the net average is 1.6 yards (40.7) below the high-elevation average.

Wadman’s career net and gross averages away from Denver are 44.2 and 37.3 yards, respectively. Martin’s net and gross averages over the last four seasons outside of his one game in Denver are 45.5 and 40.9.

So, if Martin has an average elevation bump, he’d average 47.6 gross yards and 42.5 net yards per punt in Denver. Split the difference with eight home games and eight away, and you have a gross average of 46.6 yards and a net average of 41.7.

Those figures would have ranked 7th and 14th last year.

Not the best. But a heck of a lot better than where the Broncos have been in recent years.

Martin also has another skill that gives the Broncos flexibility: He can kick off.

Over the last four years, 50.6 percent of Martin’s kickoffs ended in touchbacks, a percentage that drops slightly when you take out his 3-of-4 day last Dec. 22 when the Broncos defeated the Lions in Denver.

On 258 kickoffs within 1,500 feet of sea level — in other words, everywhere but Denver or Mexico City — since 2016, Martin has a touchback percentage of 48.4, with 68.2 percent of his kickoffs reaching the end zone. McManus’ figures in that same span at lower elevation are 50.7 and 68.1 respectively, making the two roughly comparable.

So if the Broncos need Martin to kick off, he should be able to do as well as McManus.

But Martin is in Denver to punt.

Perhaps he can finally give the Broncos what a team playing half of its games at elevation should always have: a top-10 punter.

Do not expect Martin to suddenly become an All-Pro like Kern, although Martin’s metrics should improve at elevation.

Do expect better than these rankings, which are the Broncos’ gross- and net-punting rankings in recent years:

• 2017: 23rd gross; 22nd net
• 2018: 17th gross; 28th net
• 2019: 25th gross; 27th net

The goal of free agency is rarely about finding the best player at a position. Usually, those guys get re-signed or tagged and are not readily available. It’s about making your team better.

With Martin in the fold, the Broncos and their beleaguered punting game are better now than they were when the week began.