Two decades later, Luther Elliss’ voice still lifts as he thinks back to that phone call to his parents.
The longtime NFL defensive tackle played nine seasons in Detroit. Made back-to-back Pro Bowls in 1999 and 2000. Anchored the interior for the Lions week after week, year after year.
For Elliss, though, not many moments from his decorated career stand the test of time like the conclusion of his March 2004 free agency.
“People ask, like, ‘What’s your biggest takeaway and what do you remember the most?’” Elliss told The Denver Post recently. “Being able to make that call to my parents and telling them that I’m going to be a Bronco. It was almost like draft day.”
Elliss’ dad served in the Navy, and the family moved around when he was little. When it came time to start school, Elliss went to live with his grandparents in Mancos, the small southwestern Colorado town just outside Mesa Verde National Park.
The Elliss family? They bled orange and blue. So when the choice came between a bit more money in Jacksonville or Denver, it was an easy call.
“My dad was a huge Broncos fan and so was my mom,” Elliss said. “That was our team. Elway, the Three Amigos, Orange Crush, Mecklenburg. Those were the names I recognized. … I was the type of kid that loved to play outside, I was hardly ever indoors.
“Every time I came in either the news was on or the Broncos. That dominated our TV.”
When Elliss signed with Denver, one of his sons, Jonah, was just shy of his first birthday.
Since then, Luther Elliss and his family have lived in Michigan; Highlands Ranch; Moscow, Idaho; and Salt Lake City. He’s finished his career, gone broke and through bankruptcy, started a church, gotten into coaching, earned a Super Bowl ring with the Broncos in 2015 and watched three of his sons forge their own paths to the NFL.
A lot of life. A lot of learning. A lot of experience.
But nothing quite like last Friday night. Jonah, an All-American pass-rusher at Utah, waited and watched the NFL Draft.
The phone rang.
The Denver Broncos. No. 76 overall.
Dad’s childhood team.
“When he got that call from the Broncos, it was like, ‘Yessss,’” Luther Elliss said.
“The Mayor of Sack Lake City”
Sean Payton thought the Broncos were in the clear.
Then it hit him.
Oh, no. Atlanta.
The Falcons picked No. 74, two spots ahead of Denver. Their starting inside linebacker: Kaden Elliss, one of Jonah’s older brothers. The team’s general manager: Terry Fontenot, a top lieutenant in New Orleans’ personnel department in 2019 when Payton and the Saints signed Kaden as an undrafted free agent and watched him turn into a productive pro.
Plus, Atlanta shocked the NFL world by drafting quarterback Michael Penix Jr. at No. 8 overall and eschewing its top perceived need: edge rusher.
“I’m like, ‘Maybe Kaden and Jonah didn’t get along?’” Payton said with a laugh after it all ended the way the Broncos wanted.
The Falcons took Washington edge rusher Bralen Trice. Payton got a text from Kaden Elliss, then general manager George Paton called his younger brother.
“They are two different types of players; obviously Kaden is playing more inside, and we got more of a pressure player here with this player,” Payton said after Denver landed Jonah.
The Broncos coach might have worried even more if he knew what Luther was thinking: New England at No. 68 and the Falcons at No 74 felt like good possibilities.
“We knew (Denver) liked him but you didn’t know how much,” Luther said. “It seemed like other teams had more interest. The teams that have my boys on them seemed like they were some of the most interested. They kept calling and doing interviews and different things. Not that the Broncos weren’t doing that, but it was more so other teams.”
Denver was there all along, though.
In fact, Broncos outside linebackers coach Michael Wilhoite led Jonah’s pro day workout at Utah this spring.
“(Wilhoite) said he really liked him, liked the way he moved and all these other things,” said Luther, who noted it was New Orleans linebackers coach Michael Hodges who worked Kaden out at Idaho’s pro day in 2019. “It was just true to form of how things had happened in the past.”
The Broncos are counting on Elliss to be able to add pass-rush punch to their young edge group that also includes Jonathon Cooper, Baron Browning and Nik Bonitto.
He racked up 12 sacks and 16 tackles for loss in 2023 despite playing in just 10 games for Utah, where his dad once also wore No. 83 and is now the defensive tackles coach.
Jonah Elliss went ballistic in the middle of the season, racking up 3.5 sacks against UCLA alone, then followed that up with two the next week against Oregon State, 1.5 against Cal and another against USC. Four conference games, eight sacks and 11 tackles for loss.
“I really just had a burst of confidence,” Elliss said after Denver picked him. “I put in a lot of work during the offseason to get better at pass rush. I’m obviously not perfect, but that’s something that I put a lot of time and effort into.”
The production also earned him a nickname, according to Denver seventh-round pick and former Utah wide receiver Devaughn Vele.
“We call him the Mayor of Sack Lake City,” Vele said, “because he kept getting sacks every game.”
The Chaplain
In the afterglow of Luther Elliss’ pro career, he hit hard times. A series of bad business dealings left him facing bankruptcy and the prospect of having to start from scratch with a large family.
Luther and Rebecca Elliss, a former Utah volleyball player, have 12 children total, including seven adopted.
They got involved in starting a church, called K2 The Church, in the Salt Lake City area. Luther started helping coach his sons at Judge Memorial High.
“They haven’t won a high school championship for 30-some years and we were picked last in our little region, I think,” Luther said. “And we win the state championship. Not only did we win state, but we did it back-to-back.”
In January 2015, another phone call.
“‘Hey, Luther, it’s Kubes!’” he recalls, but at the time he couldn’t place the nickname. “I was like, Kubes, Kubes, Kubes, uh?’ He’s like, ‘It’s Kubiak!’”
Gary Kubiak, of course. He’d been the offensive coordinator in Denver when Elliss wrapped up his playing career. Kubiak spent the year before he was hired as the Broncos head coach in Baltimore and the Ravens had a full-time team chaplain. He thought it had been a benefit and decided to see if Elliss was interested.
“They brought me out, interviewed me, I did a chapel service, met with the guys, met with Ray (Jackson) and coach Kubiak,” Elliss said.
He got the job and moved the family moved to Highlands Ranch.
That fall, the Broncos stormed to a Super Bowl championship.
“God has a good sense of humor is what I always tell people,” Elliss said. “It wasn’t the way I wanted to get a Super Bowl ring, but I’ll take it.”
By the time Kubiak retired after the 2016 season, Kaden Elliss was a standout linebacker at Idaho and the Vandals were recruiting Luther’s sons Noah and Christian. Coach Paul Petrino also needed a defensive line coach.
So Luther went all-in on coaching, took the job and got to be on staff while three of his boys played college ball.
Jonah showed up at Moscow High down the street as a 150-pound freshman.
“He already had size 13 shoes and these big ol’ mittens,” former Moscow High head coach Phil Helbling told The Post. “You just knew the development was going to happen. I remember seeing him and Luther and the older boys and I was like, ‘Gee, what are we getting here?’”
“The best Elliss”
Ask Helbling about Jonah Ellis and he doesn’t jump to a particularly dominant game or any number of highlight reel plays.
Instead, he’s got a stat you won’t find in the Idaho high school record books.
“Over his four years, I don’t know if he missed a single workout in the summer,” Helbling, now a physical education teacher at the school, said. “He was just unlike any other kid.”
A kid driven, naturally, by his older brothers.
“We had conversations and he always told me, ‘I’m going to be the best Elliss. I’m going to be better than my brothers were,’” Helbling said. “… And it wasn’t boastful. It wasn’t arrogant. It wasn’t cocky. It was just, I know I’m going to develop. I know this is the route I want to pursue.”
He followed in his dad’s footsteps by committing to Utah. Luther wasn’t sure what coaching had in store for him with the older boys out of school and Petrino was fired at Idaho after the 2021 season. He figured it was the end of the road, in terms of coaching his boys, at least.
“The positions (at Utah) were full but something opened up and I had an opportunity and I was like, ‘No way, this is going to be awesome.’ It’s a blessing to be able to coach your boys and have that precious time,” Luther Elliss said.“And It’s not just me coaching them. It’s that the whole family is here.”
A family that provided guidance in addition to motivation for Jonah as he progressed up the depth chart at Utah. He proved himself to be coveted by the NFL in just three seasons and also felt a tug to get to the league in order to play against Kaden, Noah and Christian. Noah, a defensive tackle, was waived by Philadelphia on April 30. But if they’re all active at the same time this year or in the future, Elias Sports Bureau says they’d be the first set of four brothers active in the NFL since the 1920s.
“I always say he’s further developed than those guys were coming out, even though he’s coming out early,” Luther said, noting it’s in part because of the guidance they provided.
Indeed, Jonah just turned 21. He’s dealt with a shoulder injury, but the Broncos anticipate he’ll be fully cleared sometime this month.
It may feel inevitable that he reached this spot, given his dad’s decade-long run in the NFL, his mom’s athleticism and his trio of brothers in the league.
Maybe it was.But like this? Son’s career starting in the same place dad’s ended 20 years ago? The same franchise that dominated the TV in Mancos 40-plus years ago?
“We just were praying that he would go to the team that fit him the best, that really wants him, that it would make the perfect fit for him,” Luther Ellis said.
“… We’re grateful it ended up being the Broncos.”
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