Broncos sign All-Pro punter

The Broncos just made a massive upgrade to their special teams.

The team announced on Thursday that have signed punter Marquette King to a three-year contract. The deal is worth $7 million according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.

King is one of the league’s premier punters, but his personality didn’t mesh with Jon Gruden, who became the Raiders’ head coach this offseason. King is outspoken on social media, dances on the field and has even been prone to penalties at times. Gruden released him from his five-year, $16.5 million contract last week, after five years with the team.

King, 29, has the fourth-longest career punting average among active players with 46.8 yards per boot. He averaged 47.4 yards per punt in 2017, good for sixth-best in the league. His net punting average, which factors in the length of the return, ranked fourth. Pro Football Focus rated him the third-best punter in the league last season, and he’s been in the top ten each of the past three years. King has also been flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct three times in the past two seasons.

After pinning the Broncos at their own two-yard line in November 2016, King did a dance before mounting and riding an invisible Bronco. While some saw King’s antics as disrespectful, Von Miller has a different opinion.

“Punters dancing,” Miller said after the game. “You know they always say it’s the ‘No Fun League,’ but you got punters out here dancing, that’s dope to me. If the score was a little bit different, it’d be even doper. I think it’s great whenever you can show some emotion. I talked to King after the game, and we were laughing about it. And I saw some clips of the dance, that’s part of the game. I feel that should be part of the game.”

At the 2017 Pro Bowl, Aqib Talib pretended to rip off King’s chain in one of King’s Instagram posts. The picture rubbed the Raiders locker room the wrong way, as Talib had torn off then-Oakland wide receiver Michael Crabtree’s chain during an on-field altercation earlier that season.

Riley Dixon—who the Broncos drafted in the seventh round in 2016 and has been their starting punter ever since—is likely on his way out of town. He ranked 14th in the league last season with an average punt of 45.6 yards.