ENGLEWOOD, Colo — It wasn’t Adam Trautman’s best catch ever.
The 6-foot-5 tight end had way more highlight film clips to choose from in college -- 70 receptions with 14 touchdowns in his 2019 senior season alone at Dayton.
“I had some in college that were pretty good,’’ Trautman recalled this week in an interview with 9NEWS for the Broncos Huddle. “One-handers. But in the NFL? Absolutely.”
The key to the catch wasn’t just dropping his left knee at the precise time and exact blade of grass, but that he used his hands. Not his body. Jackie Smith would agree.
Russell Wilson made sure Trautman had no choice but to use his hands as his scrambling pass tailed a foot or so out of bounds. Trautman reached out ever-so-slightly his two hands in the Ted Kwalick fingers up style (as opposed to hands cupped) to snag the pass for a game-clinching, 8-yard touchdown reception in a 29-12 win last Sunday against the Cleveland Browns.
Ask Jackie Smith about the importance of not letting the pass travel to the pads as the pass catcher is dropping to his knees. Smith let Roger Staubach’s sure touchdown pass travel to his chest as he dropped to his knees in the end zone of Super Bowl XIII. The pass bounced off his shoulder pads right at his chest. Smith was supposed to make that catch. No one expected Trautman to make his catch within the field of play.
“Ran a corner route and I see Russ looking away,’’ Trautman said when asked to recount the play. “And Russ is the scramble king. Like he makes stuff happen. It’s pretty special. I start to move towards his eyes and I see his eyes break back towards me and I just stuck my foot in the ground and ran right to the corner.
“We work on, and talk about, scramble drills all the time. There are spots in the end zone and where you need to be and I found one of the spots and he found me.”
Trautman may be one of head coach Sean Payton most trusted players going back to his New Orleans’ days, but not all former Saints, or any, get preferred treatment. Marquez Callaway, a receiver, and running back Tony Jones were former Saints who were cut from the Broncos’ season-opening roster. (Callaway is back on the Saints’ practice squad).
Trautman stuck because he continues to produce as a blocker and pass catcher. In the win against the Browns, the touchdown Trautman caught was one of 61 of a possible 67 (91 percent) offensive snaps he played in the game.
“I’m super happy to be back with Sean,’’ said Trautman, who has 16 catches for the season and countless solid blocks in the run game. “You want to be somewhere where you’re valued. I’m on the field a lot and they obviously trust me.’’
He knows Payton more than anyone in the Broncos’ locker room, although everyone is becoming increasingly familiar. Any difference from Payton the head coach in New Orleans in 2020-21 compared to his first season leading the Broncos?
“I think the way we started the season was something we never really dealt with, at least when I was there and even before that,’’ Trautman said. “We weren’t fighting complacency here at all at the start of the season because we were 1-5. But I would say it’s more similar at this point. He’s the commander of the ship and he righted it. When we were 1-5, there was no flinch. Each week, ‘Anything can happen. Any given Sunday.’
“That’s what we followed and now it’s, ‘Hey, it doesn’t matter what we’ve done. We don’t want to go back to where we were.’ So we’re fighting that (mentality) in the locker room.”
After their 1-5 start, the Broncos somewhat became the Cardiac Kids during their five-game winning streak. There were 2-point wins against the Packers and Bills and a 1-point victory against the Vikings. Even in what turned out to be decisive 15- and 17-point wins against the Chiefs and Browns, respectively, the Chiefs were down 14-9 and getting the ball back early in the fourth quarter and the Browns were only trailing 14-12 with the ball in the final quarter.
Teams that reach the postseason tend to win close games during the regular season. The Broncos will try to match the magical Tebow season of 2011 by picking up their sixth straight win Sunday (11 a.m. kickoff) at Houston against the similarly 6-5 Texans.
“You’d love to win every game by 20 points,’’ Trautman said. “But that’s not the reality in this league. It’s super competitive, that’s how the league made it. It’s a one-score game every single week … and I think the team mentality is why games are starting to fall our way here.”
The team mentality?
“It’s relentless,’’ Trautman said. “Especially going into the Cleveland game, we talked about it, if we’re more physical we will win. We were super physical, dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Guys were flying downhill from our secondary and making plays. We were just relentless.”
For the next two games, Trautman will wear football shoes painted with Hydrocephalus Association as part of the league’s My Cause My Cleats program.
”My cousin Justin has Hydrocephalus (a neurological disorder), they live in Troy, Michigan so I should see him in a couple weeks in Detroit which is awesome,’’ Trautman said. “He’s unbelievable. On the piano, the kid can rip off songs that are incredible. And the family, my uncle and aunt are great. They’ve done an unbelievable job with him. I’ve done this every single year and I’ll continue to do it.”
Speaking of others, Trautman heard from many past friends and relatives when he checked his phone after his magnificent catch last week.
“Yeah, I heard from a lot of people I haven’t heard from in a while,’’ he said. “It’s good to hear from people and people who have invested their time in watching me. Especially since I played in Ohio so I’m sure the local (TV) game in Ohio was the Cleveland game so a lot of people saw it. It was great.”
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