Former All-Pro punter Marquette King, who the Raiders traded to the Broncos prior to the season and was later released, talked about what went wrong in Denver. King spent just four games of his three-year deal with the Broncos before going down with the injury and being released.
According to King, he suffered an injury when the Broncos changed his punting technique prior to the season.
Via Larry Brown Sports:
“We have our first couple practices of OTAs, and it’s like, ‘Alright what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna change some things in your technique. We are going to punt regular to the right, and when you want to punt left, you gotta drop the ball like this and swing the ball across your body,’” said King. “My whole career I’ve always walked the same direction I was going to kick the ball to. And now they are telling me to walk this direction and kick the ball over here if I want to kick it that way. And the more I kept doing it, the more my leg started to hurt.
“This whole offseason I put all this work in to do things the way I normally do it, but then all of a sudden, you’re asked to change it right before the season starts, and it just throws everything off,” he went on. “You start getting scared, like I really started getting scared. I wasn’t comfortable. I even told the head coach, ‘I don’t feel comfortable doing this. I’m going into this season with no confidence because y’all are basically asking me to make every punt a special situation.’”
As you can see in the video, King is still rehabbing from the injury and is working to get back into the league. Hopefully he’s able to return sooner rather than later. The league needs an entertaining punter.
