Football
Associated Press 19y

Broncos trade for Sauerburn

DENVER -- The Denver Broncos traded for punter Todd
Sauerbrun on Thursday, 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.

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