The Broncos are not playing around
Denver Broncos | Jamie Squire/GettyImages
The Denver Broncos set themselves up with a golden opportunity to win a tight game against the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2024 season, but instead of hitting a short field goal that is made nearly 93 percent of the time over a five-year sample, the Chiefs blocked the kick and sent the Broncos on a brutal plane ride home.
As far as losses that are tough to stomach, that Chiefs game is up there among the worst. The Broncos ended up going on a four-game winning streak after that loss to the Chiefs, but nobody knew that was going to happen at the time. It was pure devastation for the fans and you can only imagine what it was like for the players and coaches.
Rookie quarterback Bo Nix, in his first career game against the Chiefs, engineered a brilliant drive late in the fourth quarter and set kicker Wil Lutz up for a 35-yard field goal, which is a kick that is made in the NFL 93 times out of a hundred over the last five years of sample size. Blocking a kick like this just doesn’t happen, but it did.
The massive mistake in a critical situation is apparently not being tolerated by the Denver Broncos and head coach Sean Payton. With longtime NFL special teams guru Mike Westhoff retiring earlier this past season, Payton has now made the decision to fire special teams coordinator Ben Kotwica.
And you can’t help but feel like that blocked kick against the Chiefs was a major contributing factor.
The #Broncos have fired special teams coach Ben Kotwica, sources tell me and @MikeGarafolo.
With #Saints interim coach Darren Rizzi available, that’s quickly a name that makes sense for Sean Payton. Would expect they speak to him, at the least.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 17, 2025
Broncos fire special teams coordinator Ben Kotwica with former Saints assistant in their sights?
Another motivating factor for Sean Payton is likely the availability of New Orleans Saints interim head coach and special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi, who has become available since the Saints are obviously moving on to a new head coach.
It’s also possible that the Broncos will promote assistant special teams coordinator Chris Banjo, who was recently interviewed by the San Francisco 49ers for their open special teams coordinator job.
So what gives, here? You have an All-Pro return specialist in back-to-back years and Wil Lutz is coming off of arguably his best year ever as a pro kicker. Riley Dixon was among the better punters in the league for most of the season.
It’s easy to overlook a number of issues the Denver Broncos had on special teams because they didn’t always come back to bite them, but if we’re honest, there were probably more special teams gaffes that nearly cost the team the season than anyone realizes.
The blocked field goal against the Chiefs was obviously the most glaring issue, but what about Riley Dixon’s punting against the Cincinnati Bengals? Not many folks talk about that as a major deciding factor in the game. It looked like Dixon was out there punting a cinder block and they couldn’t get that issue figured out during the course of that game. Denver’s special teams was constantly putting Joe Burrow and the Bengals in favorable field position, and that extended to a kickoff in the landing zone which the Broncos allowed the Bengals to return to the 37.
How about two weeks in a row of Tremon Smith having an issue with fair-catch interference? One of them was called and one wasn’t, but the one that was called (against the Los Angeles Chargers) was absolutely massive in a game where the Broncos blew an 11-point lead.
There are other isolated issues that could be pointed out as well, but needless to say — while Broncos special teams had been good for the most part, there were some hilariously bad gaffes at times that could have cost the season. And Sean Payton’s not putting up with it.
