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Darren Rizzi explains why Broncos have a second long snapper
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- Darren Rizzi explains why Broncos have a second long snapper
Undrafted rookie long snapper Luke Basso is the longest of long shots to make the Denver Broncos ' 53-man roster this summer.
Denver's incumbent long snapper, Mitchell Fraboni , is proven and reliable, and after Basso struggled in the team's preseason opener last week, Fraboni isn't in any danger of losing his job. So why are the Broncos even carrying a second long snapper on the roster this summer?
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Special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi explained the reasoning earlier this week.
"I think a couple of things," Rizzi said. "I think people wouldn't realize, but wear and tear on the long snapper, [and] a little competition never hurts either. We always evaluate the long snappers. This long snapper class, this college class, I think I mentioned way back, was actually a little bit of a unicorn because there were a number of guys that actually ended up in camps. Some years there are zero, and this year I think there were five or six.
"So we saw something in Luke, but also if you look around the league, I think like four or five long snappers have already been injured here in the preseason. The team we're playing this week, their long snapper got injured, a few others, so it's a long process. I thought having another guy in the offseason, both for competition and not to take anything away from Luke, I really thought Luke did a heck of a job in his college career, and we saw some ability there. So it was a bunch of different reasons."
That's a reasonable explanation. Basso's not going to upset Fraboni (at least, it doesn't appear he will), but the Broncos will now have a fallback option who has trained with Rizzi all summer in case Fraboni is ever unavailable. Basso's probably competing for a practice squad spot at best, but he's getting valuable reps, and Fraboni is facing some camp competition. He's extremely unlikely to make the Week 1 roster, but Basso could be an option for Denver down the road.
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This article originally appeared on Broncos Wire: Darren Rizzi explains why Broncos have a second long snapper
