Wil Lutz is the perfect placekicker for Sean Payton. And both sides know it.
If it wasn’t already clear, it was underlined and emphasized Friday when he became the latest addition to the Broncos’ flurry of veteran contract extensions, agreeing to a three-year deal that will keep him tethered to the club through the 2028 season.
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport was first to report the deal.
Aside from the 2021 season, which Lutz missed due to a core-muscle injury, the Georgia Southern product is the only full-time placekicker Payton has had since the start of the 2016 regular season. And that came after Payton cycled through 10 kickers in his first nine campaigns as New Orleans Saints head coach.
The deal comes on the heels of a five-game stretch in which Lutz drilled game-winning, walk-off field goals three times, including the 35-yarder to defeat Kansas City last Sunday.
Grateful! A lot of work ahead of us. Excited for the future in Denver‼️
— Wil Lutz (@wil_lutz5) November 22, 2025
Overall, Lutz has hit 85 percent of his 20 field-goal attempts this season and all of his extra points; of his three misses, one was blocked — by Houston’s Denico Autry — and another was a 59-yard miss during the windswept 10-7 win over Las Vegas on Nov. 6.
LUTZ HAS WEATHERED THE UPS AND DOWNS WITH PAYTON
Lutz joined Payton in 2016 after losing a training-camp duel in Baltimore with Justin Tucker. He quickly proved he had the accuracy — and the mental mettle — to succeed as a long-term answer as kicker where others had fallen short under Payton’s watch.
After being named AFC Special Teams Player of the Week in Week 8 — an honor he repeated in Week 11 — he was asked what it took to work under Payton, having endured for nearly a decade.
“That’s a deep question,” Lutz said, smiling. “I think you gotta trust yourself, one, you gotta understand his approach to the game. You gotta understand he’s an intense coach, and there’s almost like — he’s able to kind of pull the best out of every player.
“And he knows how to kind of work — like, he was giving me a hard time in field-goal period [the previous day], and, we kind of had fun with that, and you just gotta know how to handle it, and he’s gotta know how to handle us. And I think he does a really good job kind of reading the room and understanding his players.”
Lutz gets Payton. Payton gets him. And now they’ll get each other for another three seasons.
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