The New Orleans Saints have chosen to bring back their embattled kicker Wil Lutz for 2023, but on an important condition: that he agree to a pay cut. ESPN’s Field Yates first reported that the Saints reworked their deal with Lutz to save $1.5 million in salary cap space, which was confirmed by NewOrleans.Football’s Nick Underhill — who adds that this was not a restructure. Instead of carrying a $3.4 million base salary for the upcoming season, Lutz is seeing just $1.9 million.
But he can earn much of it back through incentives added to his contract, per NOF’s Mike Triplett. If Lutz returns to form and does his job well in the fall, he won’t have lost any money. That’s a big “if,” though. He missed the entire 2021 season recovering from core muscle surgery and he looked rusty in 2022. Lutz did improve on extra point attempts, making all 33 of them, but his shakiness on field goals from varying distances was a problem throughout the season. He missed his first 44-yard field goal try in the Saints’ season-ending loss to the Carolina Panthers and had his second attempt (at a distance of 55 yards) blocked.
Of the 20 kickers to attempt 31 or more field goals last season, Lutz is one of four to have connected on fewer than 80% of their tries:
- Wil Lutz (Saints): 23 of 31 (74.2%)
- Cade York (Browns): 24 of 32 (75.0%)
- Brandon McManus (Broncos): 28 of 36 (77.8%)
- Greg Joseph (Vikings): 26 of 33 (78.8%)
Now Lutz carries the 12th-highest salary cap hit among NFL kickers at $4.12 million, having previously ranked 5th at $5.62 million. He’s in the final year of his contract and the Saints have already brought in some competition by signing Alex Quevedo to a reserve/future deal (he tried out for them last summer), and the lack of guarantees mean the Saints could save more money by releasing Lutz this summer if another kicker outplays him in training camp. He has a lot on the line in 2023.