The Denver Broncos have signed kicker Taylor Bertolet, the team announced Monday. He’s a 26-year-old veteran that has bounced around the league since signing with the Los Angeles Rams as an undrafted free agent out of Texas A&M in 2016.
Teams often sign specialists during the offseason to provide competition for returning starters. For example, the team is expected to sign undrafted long snapper Jacob Bobenmoyer out of UNC to push Casey Kreiter this summer.
But Bertolet doesn’t feel like a signing that will push incumbent starter Brandon McManus, a Super Bowl champion who has converted 80.6 percent of his field goal attempts in the NFL.
Bertolet hasn’t even attempted a field goal in a regular season NFL game and he converted just 64.3% percent of his attempts in the Alliance of American Football this spring. He doesn’t seem like much of a threat to McManus.
This may be a case of Denver wanting to take a look at a player as a potential fallback option. Bertolet spent time with the Broncos last spring before going on to compete for the New York Jets’ starting job.
Denver may want to take a look at Bertolet this offseason and then decide if he’d be a good option to call in case anything happens to McManus this season. It seems likely that he was signed merely as a “camp leg.” The team may keep Bertolet in mind if they need a kicker down the road but he seems unlikely to actually compete for a roster spot this summer.
