ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The last time the Broncos played the Saints in the Superdome, Wil Lutz was kicking for the other guys.
The end was memorable for both parties. It was mid-November 2016 and Drew Brees had just thrown a touchdown pass with 1:22 remaining to draw the Saints even with the Broncos, 23-23. All Lutz had to do was kick the extra point and the Saints would have been up, 24-23.
But in a play that was declared illegal after the season, Broncos rookie special team safety Justin Simmons leaped over the line of scrimmage and smothered Lutz’s kick. The ball bounded left where fellow Broncos special teams safety Will Parks picked it up and ran down the left sideline — darn near hitting the white sideline boundary on his way — for a 2-point conversion that gave the Broncos an improbable 25-23 win.
“That was a tough day,’’ Lutz said this week in an interview with 9NEWS for the Broncos Huddle. “That was actually one of the first things when I met Justin my first day here (in 2023), we joked about it. Outstanding play. Executed to perfection. In hindsight, I’m glad the Broncos won. Here we are.”
As it turned out, that win in the Superdome became a line of demarcation for the Broncos franchise. Coming off five consecutive AFC West titles and their Super Bowl 50 championship in 2015, the Broncos moved to 7-3 in that 2016 season thanks to the Simmons Leap. As if the football gods wanted several pounds of flesh in return for blessing Denver with the road win, the Broncos lost four of their next five games, missed the playoffs with a 9-7 record and haven’t been to the playoffs since.
Moreover, the league’s competition committee after the 2016 season banned players like Simmons from leaping over blockers.
“When you change the game, that’s pretty cool,’’ Lutz said.
Lutz is one of 10 former Saints on the Broncos’ roster and practice squad who is returning to New Orleans and the Superdome for a Thursday night game against the Saints. He was real good the first five of his six seasons kicking indoors for the Saints.
“A lot of love for people in that building,’’ he said. “Made a lot of big kicks there. Spent more than half my career there, so excited to get back there but excited to be on the other end of things as well. I think it will be fun for a lot of guys on the team.”
On Tuesday, while the rest of the Broncos were practicing outside on their Saints’ logo-painted practice fields, Lutz was in the Pat Bowlen Fieldhouse kicking field goals while working with holder Riley Dixon, who is also the team’s punter, and long snapper Mitch Fraboni.
Let’s hold for the basics. The difference between kicking off turf and grass and Lutz’s preference?
“Without overthinking it … one gives a little more, one sticks a little more,’’ he said. “I love kicking off grass, our stadium’s grass which helps. I guess I would say I prefer grass but we’re ready to kick off anything.”
Lutz is having an exceptional season for the Broncos six games in, making 13 of 14 field goals and 9 of 9 extra points. That puts him among the league’s top four kickers as he joins the Steelers’ Chris Boswell, Washington’s Austin Seibert and the 49ers’ Jake Moody as the only ones who have missed just one field goal (minimum 10 attempts) and made every extra point.
“There’s a level of familiarity that you need to have in this league and our operation we’ve really gotten comfortable,’’ Lutz said. “So to Mitch and Riley’s credit, they’ve been flawless on their part, which helps me.’’
Lutz has especially spoken glowingly of Fraboni’s improvement from last year.
“Yeah, Mitch has done a great job for Riley both with punt, field goal,’’ Lutz said. “He’s blocking and the guy’s making tackles so we’re really proud of him being a third-year guy now figuring it out and locking in and that makes our job easier.
“And the more you see kicks go through the uprights the better, whether that’s practice or a game. We’ve been fortunate now where we’ve logged a lot of kicks together and hopefully we’re trending in the right direction.”
Lutz was in the middle of a head-scratching play in the final minute of the Broncos’ 23-16 loss Sunday to the Chargers. Announcing an onside kick attempt per new rules, Lutz surprisingly laid the ball on the 35-yard stripe without a tee. He struck the ball towards the left sideline. It rolled with minimal bounce and zipped to the sideline out of bounds before Tremon Smith or anybody else on the Broncos’ kickoff coverage team could reach it.
Why not use the tee and go for the high-hopper?
“It’s such a low percentage play that you try to get creative with it,’’ Lutz said. Indeed, only 5.2% of onside kicks were successfully recovered by the kicking team last year. “That kick itself was a little aggressive on my part. But the idea of that kick is it’s on the ground, it’s going to create a little bit of confusion and a little bit of indecisiveness.
“Unfortunately like most onside kicks these days it didn’t go our way but we got it on film and we’ll try to perfect that a little better.”
As so Lutz and the Broncos are on to New Orleans where he got his start. As the story goes, Lutz was among the Baltimore Ravens' final cuts near the start of the 2016 season. When Payton and the Saints weren’t satisfied with the kickers they had during the preseason, Lutz came in for a quick tryout. He won the audition to become the Saints’ kicker.
“That was such a great opportunity to start my career, everyone has heard the coach tell the story of how I got there, it’s hard to point to one specific memory,’’ Lutz said. “We’ve made a lot of big kicks in that stadium. We won a lot of games there. It’s just taking it all in more than anything. It’ll be special.
“But at the end of the day it’s been such a blessing for my family and I to come to Denver and I’m excited to be on the other side. We just want to win and we’ll look back on this memory after the game.”
