Sean Payton Sounds Off on Broncos K Wil Lutz's Concerning Debut

Sean Payton has some explaining to do.

Wil Lutz would probably like to forget his Denver Broncos debut. In the Broncos' Week 1 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders, Lutz missed his first extra-point attempt, as well as a 55-yard field goal try in the third quarter.

The Raiders won the game, 17-16. But if Lutz connected on all of his kicks, we could be talking about a very different outcome, as his misses left four points off the scoreboard. 

Lutz has spent about two weeks in Denver after the Broncos acquired him via trade from the New Orleans Saints. Following the loss to the Raiders, Broncos head coach Sean Payton admitted his surprise at Lutz's missed extra point.  

“I didn’t have a good angle to look at the missed extra point," Payton said when asked about what he saw on Lutz's first missed kick. "I was surprised a little bit [by] his first kick. He’ll bounce back. He’s had a good two weeks with us, hasn’t had any issues. We attempted the longer field goal—a 55-yard field goal. That one looked pretty close. That too, I think was missed right, though, so we’ll work to get that cleaned up.”

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Lutz went 1-for-2 on field goals and 1-for-2 on extra-point tries. No kicker can long survive a 50% conversion rate in either aspect of his responsibilities. 

Adding insult to injury, Payton called an onside kick to open the game with — you guessed it — Lutz as the kickoff specialist. It wasn't a poor kick, but Tremon Smith touched it about a foot before it crossed the 10-yard threshold of being legal. Even though the Broncos recovered, they were penalized for an illegal touch kick. 

Payton lost his first game as Denver's head coach to a Raiders squad that extended its winning streak over the Broncos to seven straight games. That's harsh enough, but Payton has additional egg on his face after Lutz's lapses directly cost the Broncos a win. 

Remember, Payton was purportedly the impetus for the Broncos releasing veteran kicker Brandon McManus this past spring. From there, both kickers Payton brought in to compete for the job were so lackluster that the Broncos' head coach figured that sending a 2024 seventh-round pick to the Saints in exchange for the player who lost New Orleans' kicker competition this summer made sense. 

At this point, the McManus decision doesn't look like it was a wise one. And I write this as someone who supported the move at the time, but nobody bats 1.000 in the NFL media business. 

There's still plenty of time for Lutz to bounce back and prove the coach with whom he spent many years in New Orleans right. Until then, the Broncos fans who aren't pining for McManus are pounding the table for Payton to pick up the phone and call Brett Maher — the winner of Denver's kicker competition this summer. 

Fans can only hope that Payton's continued confidence in Lutz is well-founded and the former Pro Bowl kicker indeed cleans up his act. 

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