With the 228th pick in the 2016 NFL draft, the Denver Broncos selected punter Riley Dixon out of Syracuse.

I am not going to pretend I know anything about Dixon. I assume he has a valuable skill set of punting the football, but I could be way off.

In fact, I have yet to see him actually punt a ball. From what I have seen is that he not only has tremendous athletic ability, but also has an absolutely killer right-hook.

It’s may not be the Stone Cold Stunner, but this head-butt bicep-thrust is extremely effective and leaves opponents less dazed and more confused.

Leaping aside, John Elway and the Broncos front office clearly saw something in Dixon. He had a remarkable 42.4 percent fair catch rate in 2015 and only had nine touchbacks in two seasons. Despite having average leg strength, NFL.com analysts feel that he absolutely has the “tools to win a job in the NFL.”

This is not a great sign for current Broncos punter, Britton Colquitt.

Colquitt, who took a $1.4 million haircut to stay in Denver last offseason, had a phenomenal 2015 postseason, but has otherwise been a very middle-of-the-road punter. Over the past few years, he has consistently been in the bottom portion of the league in both average and net yards per punt, which is surprising considering he plays half of his games in the thin air of Denver.

After a tremendous 2013 season in which he forced opponents to fair catch a whopping 38 percent of his punts, his production dropped off significantly as he posted a measly 19 percent fair catch rate in 2015. Colquitt has also struggled pinning opponents in their own territory. Just to put things into perspective, Colquitt only placed 26 percent of his punts inside the opponents 20-yard line in 2015 while his brother, Dustin Colquitt of the Chiefs, posted an astonishing 49 percent.

With Colquitt set to make $4 million this upcoming season, it seems impossible to ask him to reduce his salary enough to compete with that of a seventh-round rookie contract. Some think that this was a ploy by Elway to force Colquitt’s hand into taking a pay cut, but I find it hard to think that the Broncos would use a valuable draft pick to gain leverage in contract negotiations when it was likely that Dixon would have gone undrafted.

Odds are that Colquitt is out and Dixon is in. This move will free up some cash to assist in working out a long-term deal with linebacker Von Miller, which continues to be the Broncos top priority this offseason.

If Broncos fans can be assured of one thing, it is that they will never have to worry about Dixon taking a tumble like that of Seahawks punter Jon Ryan.