The New Orleans Saints made a surprise trade ahead of Tuesday’s NFL roster cuts by trading former Pro Bowl kicker Wil Lutz to Sean Payton’s Denver Broncos. It’s a move that Lutz’s agent John Perla isn’t quick to embrace, telling the Denver Gazette’s Chris Tomasson “He didn’t lose his job. The Saints just made a poor decision.”
Lutz and Grupe were neck-and-neck throughout the summer, with things coming to a peak in their final Saints preseason game. Grupe nailed a 50-yard field goal early on and had enough distance on a 60-yard try later, but the ball drifted too far to the right and swung wide of the uprights.
That didn’t dissuade the Saints from giving Grupe the starting nod and shipping Lutz off to Denver. But Perla still isn’t happy to see his client cast aside.
“The better player is not the one who is left on the Saints’ roster, I’ll tell you that,” Perla added to Tomasson.
We’ll see how things play out for both kickers when the regular season kicks off in a few weeks. Lutz will be playing for a coach he knows well at high elevation, where kickers have performed well before. Grupe will be working indoors for much of the season under a coach who has expressed a ton of confidence in him. Both guys are in good situations, but it’s pretty clear that Lutz didn’t leave New Orleans because he wanted to.
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