The Denver Broncos traded for punter Todd Sauerbrun today, sending their own punter, Jason Baker, and a seventh-round pick in next year’s draft to the Carolina Panthers.
Sauerbrun is one of the best punters in the game – he led the NFC in gross average from 2001-03 – but he has been in trouble through much of the last few years.
Sauerbrun was identified recently in a CBS report as one of three Carolina Panthers who obtained illegal steroid prescriptions from an alternative medicine doctor in South Carolina.
Late last year, the punter was arrested and charged with drunken driving.
Last season, he refused to fill in for injured kicker John Kasay unless Carolina refunded some of the money the team fined him for being overweight.
During that episode, Sauerbrun vetoed Carolina’s attempt to bring in Bill Gramatica for a tryout; the punter has a feud with the Gramatica family.
Despite all that, and despite using a seventh-round pick in this year’s draft to take punter Paul Ernster, the Broncos decided to give Sauerbrun a chance after a drawn-out contract negotiation with the punter and his agent.
Details of the contract were not released, but it had been reported that Sauerbrun was seeking a deal that would pay more of the $3.9 million owed on the last three years of his contract up front in exchange for reducing the annual salary.
