Here's why fans should be concerned with Denver's struggles on special teams

In the game of football there are three phases; offense, defense, and special teams. In the age of fantasy football, the offense receives the most attention.

From the quarterback, to the play-makers, to even the blockers, people pay attention to and love to watch high-scoring and explosive offenses. Defense can be fun as well, with pass rush, big hits, physicality, and turnovers.

A typical observer can appreciate both offense and defense, but it is that third phase of special teams play that can be somewhat forgotten and neglected.

Perhaps this also happened with the Denver Broncos so far in training camp, as the special teams units, outside of the long-snapping of Casey Kreiter and the kicking of Brandon McManus, left a lot to be desired.

On Thursday night vs. the Seattle Seahawks, from the opening kickoff in which Devontae Booker fumbled the snap behind the 20-yard line only to have it bounce back into his hands, throughout the rest of the game, the Broncos’ special teams — led by coordinator Tom McMahon — was dreadful and continually put the team's other units behind schedule and in disadvantageous situations.

The first and most obvious struggling player to point at is punter Colby Wadman. Brought in last season to replace the erratic Marquette King, Wadman was up and down last season but performed about as expected for an undrafted rookie.

The Broncos did end up bringing in another punter into this year's camp in Justin Vogel to challenge Waldman, but that lasted less than a week before he was waved. On the surface, Wadman looked okay, averaging 46.7 yards per punt with two inside the 20, but his hang-time and placements were less than ideal.

What makes the punting worse was the coverage of those punts. The Broncos have taken some serious damage at the positions of linebacker and tight end to start camp and preseason, two positions heavily involved in the coverage units on special teams, but what was shown on the third phase was less than ideal for the Broncos.

From lane discipline on both punt coverage and kick coverage, to squaring up and tackling with form, the Broncos’ special teams looked undisciplined and let returners slip out of their grasp multiple times, allowing Seattle to set up their offense and defense in prime positions to take advantage of the field position.

Typically, special teams if full of depth players, and given the struggles of the Broncos’ third and fourth-stringers perhaps this is a talent deficit as much as anything, but it was painful to watch.

The return game was not much better. As previously mentioned, Booker fumbled on the opening kickoff and very fortunately had it bounce right back into his breadbasket. Seattle, like many teams with the new kickoff rules, kicked the ball with air and hang-time instead of blasting it out of the endzone, and the results were great coverage units flying down the field and swarming the Broncos.

Denver does not possess anything close to an electric returner who can make something out of little-to-nothing, but even having just a guy who can catch it and turn the ball upfield for some yardage should be possible if the blockers in front are some level of competent. They did not show so on Thursday night.

On top of the poor punts, poor kickoff and punt coverage, and poor kickoff and punt returns, the coverage and return units also were incessantly penalized. This wasn’t just a Broncos issue last night, as the second half of the game turned into a parade of yellow flags flying through the air, but the special teams committed multiple penalties that took a mediocre special teams play to poor.

A high volume of flags is normal for preseason, but with how often penalties were called the refs had to have needed to ice their shoulders after the game from how much they threw the flag.

Special teams is often swept under the rug from the general viewing public unless a team has a dynamic returner or good (or extremely bad) kicker. McManus and Kreiter did their jobs, but the rest of the Broncos’ special teams was rather abysmal against the Seahawks.

With the injury bug biting the tight end and linebacker group, as well as an injury to special teams standout in fullback Andy Janovich, the unit is going to need to ramp up its discipline and technique to overcome the fleeting depth and talent in the bodies taking the field for kickoffs and punts.

An old football adage is that the game is three phases, and in order to win the game, your team needs to trump the opponents in two of the three of offense, defense, and special teams. Constantly losing the special teams battle sets everyone back and puts the offense behind schedule and the defense in a bad spot.

Not performing and losing the battle of special teams is the definition of death by inches, and must be turned around by the time the regular season is here.

Follow Nick on Twitter @NickKendellMHH.