Buccaneers paid $6 million to find out what Broncos already knew

One of the Denver Broncos' biggest losses in the 2025 offseason was punter Riley Dixon, who had been on his second stint with the team after he was initially drafted by the Broncos in 2016.

Dixon was solid in his second go-round with the Broncos, but not spectacular or overly consistent. In fact, in the back half of the 2024 season, Dixon was a big reason why the Broncos' playoff chances were threatened. He had a couple of really bad games against the Bengals and Chargers late, and though the Broncos tried to bring him back in free agency, he decided to leave for Tampa Bay.

The Buccaneers signed Dixon to a two-year deal worth $6 million in total money, the 7th-highest average annual value of any punter in the league. And they're finding out the hard way what the Denver Broncos already knew.

Broncos should be thankful they ended up with Jeremy Crawshaw over Riley Dixon

Things had gotten bad enough over the first month of the season for the Bucs and Dixon that Tampa Bay apparently was considering bringing in punters for workouts to see if they could challenge Dixon.

But their bed has already been made.

Obviously, if things do get bad enough, the Bucs will probably consider a major change despite their financial investment in Dixon. But just like some MLB teams bank on their pitchers coming around, they're banking on Dixon coming around.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Crawshaw currently leads the NFL with 10 punts inside the 20. Dixon has just three punts inside the 20 and two that have been blocked. Not only has Dixon had multiple punts blocked at this point, but the Bucs have allowed 99 punt return yards on his kicks, which is the 10th-most return yards allowed this season.

In other former Broncos punter news, former Broncos punter Sam Martin has the most punt return yards allowed this season at a whopping 203 total punt return yards allowed, though the majority of those came in the Panthers' ugly loss against the Patriots in Week 4.

Hey, you know something else that's interesting with the Broncos taking on the Eagles in Week 5? The Eagles have allowed the 2nd-most punt return yards so far of any team this season and the 7th-highest yards per punt return of any team. That figure is just behind Riley Dixon, who is allowing 16.5 yards per punt return.

The hidden yardage of special teams is no joke, and the Broncos should be glad they ended up with the rookie Crawshaw instead of one of these highly-paid veterans who are failing to live up to expectations.