Broncos have released kicker Brett Maher

With the Denver Broncos trade with the New Orleans Saints for kicker Wil Lutz on Tuesday, it was clear that Brett Maher would be hitting the waivers soon after. Maher had a pretty disastrous first preseason game, but was perfect over the final two preseason games.

Even so, Head Coach Sean Payton clearly looked to reunite with his old kicker in New Orleans. Payton also telegraphed that he’d be making some sort of move two weeks ago when he said, “Brett [Maher] had a good day today. He’s competing. He’s competing with himself because he’s got 31 other teams. There are probably seven teams that have a real kicking battle, so he’s competing with those guys that come out of those clubs. That doesn’t discount us, possibly, if we wanted to bring in another player.”

Wil Lutz is going to be the guy in Denver and Maher has to hope he did enough in the preseason to show those 31 other teams he’s still got it in the NFL.