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Broncos Staff Hire Named Most Underrated Move of Offseason

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Coby Leibowitz | Last updated May 30, 2025 11:15 AM ET

The Denver Broncos made numerous significant offensive and defensive moves this season, bringing in players such as Jahdae Barron, RJ Harvey, Evan Engram, and Dre Greenlaw. These additions are going to be huge for the Broncos this season, but there is a third phase of the game that is just as important. Special teams might not be the fan favorite to watch, but it can make or break a game or even a season.

The Broncos seem to think the same way, as they decided to hire Darren Rizzi as their special-teams coach. This signing did not get talked about a lot in the media,but Mike Sando of The Athletic named it his favorite offseason move for the Broncos in his recent article about his favorite offseason moves for each team.

Sando mentions that hiring Rizzi rounds out one of the best and most proven coaching trios with Sean Payton and Vance Joseph. He also adds that Rizzi worked under Payton during their time with the New Orleans Saints from 2019-2021, and so the chemistry between Payton and Rizzi is already there. He ends off by mentioning that the Saints were 12th in special teams EPA during Rizzi's tenure, including fourth on punts, punt returns, kickoffs, and kickoff returns.

Last season, the Broncos were middle of the pack special teams-wise, this year they look to clean things up and attempt to dominate all three phases of the ball. Last year, they excelled with kicking and punt returning, but had the second-fewest amount of kick return yards. Rizzi should consider keeping Pro Bowler Marvin Mims at punt returner, but maybe try to replace him at kick returner during OTAs and training camp.

Not only did Mims struggle, but the lack of receiver help that Denver brought in is going to cause him to have a big part in the offense once again this season, so he should not be overworked at both kick and punt returner as well as receiver. They are also retaining kicker Will Lutz, who was 31-34 on field goals last year and 46 for 46 on extra points.

Rizzi is going to have a lot of special teams pieces to work with this year, he just needs to be able to get them to play better as a unit. If he can be the special teams coach he was in New Orleans, then he will make a big impact for the team that will go unnoticed by many.

The signing of Rizzi is the type of signing that makes the team better by fine-tuning the little things. Rizzi is getting an already really solid group and has the chance to make them one of the best in the league.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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