Forklifts, patience and practice in the park: How Jacob Bobenmoyer became the Broncos' long snapper

Long snappers are like the civil servants of the United States Postal Service. They deliver whenever asked. And you only notice them when something doesn’t arrive on time and in its proper place.

And the ability to deliver snaps better was what earned Jacob Bobenmoyer the job to replace Casey Kreiter at a discipline and a job that is as necessary as it is underappreciated by the general public.

“Just being more accurate,” special-teams coordinator Tom McMahon said Friday when asked what separated Bobenmoyer from Wes Farnsworth during training camp. “Both could throw the ball well and both could protect, but the accuracy part separated the two.”

And specifically, it was about being consistently accurate. It involves hitting what snappers call the “strike zone.” It’s a bit like a baseball strike zone. Bobenmoyer noted that for punt snaps, it goes from the punter’s shoulders to his knees, with a width of the punter’s frame plus six inches to either side.

“The No. 1 thing [was] that we just had to show the consistency in practice with our snaps,” Bobenmoyer added. “That was the biggest thing that was emphasized. And then, obviously, our protection and just being coachable to learn the things that we needed to learn as rookie snappers.”

So when Monday night arrives, hopefully the only time you hear Bobenmoyer’s name is when ESPN play-by-play announcer Steve Levy makes note of the snapper and holder on Brandon McManus’ placekicks.

Not bad for someone who was driving a forklift at this time last year.

THE PATH LESS TRAVELED

Bobenmoyer is technically a rookie, since he was not under contract with any NFL team at any point in 2019, the first year in which he was pro-eligible after matriculating at Northern Colorado, where he played linebacker and long snapper. Along with cornerback Essang Bassey, Bobenmoyer extends the run in which the Broncos had at least one undrafted rookie on their initial 53-man roster to 16 in the last 17 years.

After earning a trip to the East-West Shrine Game in January 2019, the opportunities dried up. Two tryouts with the Broncos — one at rookie camp in May, the other in December — were all he had until the team signed him to a contract in March.

So he needed to stay in shape to keep his dream alive. He also needed a job.

Enter Panther Industries, a Highlands Ranch-based company that specializes in labeling-automation systems and solutions.

He built crates. He became certified to drive a forklift. He did whatever he was asked.

“It was fun — to me at least,” he said.

All the while, Bobenmoyer’s days took on a highly-regimented routine: Work a full shift at Panther, then focus on football by heading to Elite Speed Sports Performance, located on Broncos Parkway just a long pass from UCHealth Training Center.

“I would work eight or nine hours a day, and then I’d go train for two or three hours a day, and then I’d go home and do the same thing over and over,” he said. “I just kept doing that.”

He found a consistent routine — which is apt, because consistency is the hallmark of any great long snapper. That also became a focal point of his daily workouts.

“It just comes down to repetition and being consistent with your own technique and knowing, ‘OK, This is how it should feel, this is how I line up, this is where my hands go on the ball, this is what my release feels like, this is what it looks like,'” he said.

“A lot of it is results-based, so you’re like, ‘OK, if I’m consistently throwing in the strike zone, what I’m doing is working, so I have to make sure that I do this every single time, make sure it feels the same, make sure that I line up the same, make sure that my routine is the same.”

As Bobenmoyer stuck to his regimen, the 2019 season plowed onward. When the call came from the Broncos for a late-season look, he was ready. He just needed time off from work.

“I took that whole week off and they were like, ‘All right,’ and I had already gone through my paid-time off,” he said. “Of course, my girlfriend’s mom was my boss, so I got lucky in that situation.”

What he did in his workout wasn’t luck. His skill earned him a call from the Broncos in March, informing him that they wanted to sign him to compete with Wes Farnsworth for the long-snapping job.

At first he kept the news to himself.

“I actually didn’t really tell people, because I was like — I don’t know why I didn’t tell people, honestly!” Bobenmoyer recalled. “I was like, ‘I’m just going to do the same thing I’ve been doing,’ but obviously when I got it, I was ecstatic.”

And even with a pandemic raging, it was time to go to work — football work.

PRACTICE IN THE PARK

When Bobenmoyer signed his contract, Colby Wadman was still the Broncos’ punter. The two connected and worked out together at parks in Castle Rock and Highlands Ranch.

For Bobenmoyer, the workouts were illuminating. Through Wadman, who the Broncos waived in April, he learned just what an NFL punter wants.

“I was kind of able to pick his brain on stuff and work with an NFL punter. So I was able to get really good feedback on my snaps, like good location if there’s a wobble on them or or something like that,” Bobenmoyer said.

The value of consistency was a point that got hammered home during these sessions.

“Really, it just comes down to repetition and making sure every rep is what you want,” Bobenmoyer said.

“Obviously, you’re going to have your bad reps, but then you have to [figure out] why it is a bad rep, and just make sure to maintain your consistency with your good snaps.”

For all that the Broncos lost with not having organized team activities, Bobenmoyer was probably able to approximate those sessions better than anyone else on the roster. Most of the specialists’ work in practices comes on a field separate from where the offensive and defense players work. Together, the punter, kicker and snapper practice their crafts.

This separation is one reason why in the past three decades, teams have come to favor training their punters as placekick holders, rather than backup quarterbacks, as was the case in the 1980s. They can maximize their repetitions that way.

That said, the element of full-team repetitions was still missing, and that was a mountain Bobenmoyer still had yet to climb.

“If you look at the snappers in college football, college football rules are 1,000 percent different in the punt game than the NFL,” McMahon said. “Everybody can release when the ball is snapped, so 95 percent of all the snappers in college football have never ever one time in their life protected. They’ve never had to protect the gap.

“That’s the biggest adjustment for those guys from a snapper’s perspective.”

And when those team repetitions arrived in training camp, Bobenmoyer delivered, doing enough to show that his accuracy could translate.

AND … HE’S A BRONCOS FAN

The COVID-19 pandemic means that all interviews are over the phone or via Zoom conferencing. Compared to normal years, in which you talk to players on the field after training-camp practice or in the locker room, you lose some of the personal connection that comes from an insightful conversation.

But you can still hear excitement in a voice. For Bobenmoyer, that comes when he thinks about what it means to play for the team that he grew up supporting while living in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

His family of Broncos fans was overjoyed when he got the opportunity to try out for the Broncos. But they had another pressing question.

“So when I had my workouts, they asked, ‘Did you see [John] Elway?’ That was really cool,” Bobenmoyer said. “I would only see these people on TV, and then I see them in real life, and it’s like, ‘Whoa!’ You don’t want to be shocked, but it’s crazy to me..”

And what was even crazier last month was looking around the field and seeing a beloved Bronco legend of a current generation.

For years, Bobenmoyer pulled for Von Miller. Now, they are teammates. Sadly, he won’t get to see Miller in practice for at least three months.

But the eight-time Pro Bowler will still be around. And when he gets the chance, Bobenmoyer plans to tell Miller about when he was at the Super Bowl 50 MVP’s summer football camp while preparing for another season at East High School in Cheyenne several years ago.

“He was speaking at it. And now we’re teammates,” Bobenmoyer said. “It’s crazy how the world works.”

Still, this Broncos fan has never been to Empower Field at Mile High for a game. His only two trips there so far were for the practices on Aug. 29 and Sept. 4.

“I’ve been able to go to NFL games — especially Broncos games. But I kind of always wanted it in the back of my mind that I want the first NFL game I go to to be the one that I play in,” he said.

Last year, Bobenmoyer’s Mondays involved driving a forklift.

This next Monday, he’ll ride to the stadium with his teammates. Then, hopefully you won’t hear his name. But you’ll know that this product of Broncos Country has done his family, his home state, his friends and his former co-workers proud.