Sean Payton has a kicking competition — even though he has just one kicker on the Broncos roster

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — There will be a Denver Broncos kicking competition this summer. And that will be the case even if Elliott Fry remains the only kicker on their roster.

And for the rationale behind it — as with many things — Payton’s perspective goes back to what he learned working under Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells.

“Bill Parcells taught me this: When he would talk to the team, he would say, ‘Don’t pay attention to the depth chart just in your meeting room.’ If you’re a safety … you’re competing against the other 31 teams’ safeties, as well, because one might become available,” Payton said last week.

As June dawns, NFL teams have 46 placekickers under contract. Unless a few teams throw curveballs by keeping multiple kickers on their roster, 14 of them will be on the market in late August. And that group doesn’t even include the proven veteran kickers still unsigned, such as Robbie Gould, Mason Crosby and Ryan Succop.

Kickers who could be expendable include San Francisco’s Zane Gonzalez, Cameron Dicker of the Los Angeles Chargers and a slew of rookies and first-year players, including Pittsburgh’s B.T. Potter, Indianapolis’ Lucas Havrisik, New Orleans’ Blake Grupe, Detroit’s Parker Romo — who was the most accurate kicker in the XFL this past season — and Tampa Bay’s Jake Verity. All find themselves in situations where they could be among those deemed expendable.

Payton’s been around long enough to know that quality might be lurking in the form of a kicker who loses a battle.

“We had a kicking battle one year in New Orleans with two guys and man, [the media] all charted it each day during training camp,” Payton remembered. “It was either/or. This went on and on, and it was one of those battles where I don’t know if I was any clearer after four weeks than I was when it began. They both did good things, and then had days maybe they weren’t as good.

“Then, the final cut down takes place at 53 and I get a call from someone I know well with another staff that thinks he’s got a kicker. We bring him in on Monday, work him out, and we sign neither of the two in the kicking battle.”

The kicker Payton signed became his longest-tenured kicker in New Orleans. Wil Lutz hit the market when the Baltimore Ravens cut him before the 53-player roster deadline in 2016. That’s understandable; Baltimore has — and had then — Justin Tucker, who is on a potential Hall-of-Fame trajectory.

Lutz got the job over Kai Forbath, who had beaten out Connor Barth in the competition Payton referenced. And Lutz quickly stopped the Saints’ revolving door of kickers. They had 10 kickers in Payton’s first 10 seasons as head coach: John Carney, Billy Cundiff, Olindo Mare, Martin Gramatica, Taylor Mehlhaff, Garrett Hartley, John Kasay, Shayne Graham, Zach Hocker and Forbath.

In other words, Payton’s best kicker was one who didn’t even go through training camp with his team before getting the job. Coincidentally, the Broncos got Brandon McManus in a similar scenario. He wasn’t going to stick with the New York Giants, so the Broncos traded for him in the final week of the 2014 preseason.

Fry will get the first shot. And he might remain the Broncos’ only kicker into training camp.

But he’ll be in a competition every bit as heated as an actual one-on-one battle.

“So, don’t pay attention to the line in front of you or the room you’re in,” Payton said. “You’re competing with yourself to put your best product on the field because there’s 31 other teams that might be deeper in a position and that you have availability for.”

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