FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. – By the middle of each week, Elliott Fry usually has an idea of his weekend plans. He’s either going to be home, unemployed, or he’ll be on Interstate 26, starting his drive from Charleston, South Carolina, to Georgia, getting ready for a weekend of work.
Well, the anticipation of maybe, possibly, only-in-an-emergency actually working.
This is life for Fry, the kicker whose name has appeared as a transaction made by the Atlanta Falcons 14 times this season. It has been a constant cycle of hirings and firings, usually brought aboard on a Friday or Saturday only to be let go on a Monday or Tuesday.
And once this season, when he learned he’d have a workout with the Los Angeles Chargers the Tuesday following Atlanta’s win against Miami, on a Sunday night. It’s a job that may be confusing for some and go unnoticed by the majority of NFL fans.
But in the world of COVID-19, what has been happening with Fry on an almost weekly basis this season has been an insurance policy. Most weeks this season, the Falcons have signed Fry to the practice squad as an emergency option at kicker or punter in case one of their specialists gets hurt or comes up with a positive COVID-19 test. If all goes well for Atlanta, Fry is gone the following Monday or Tuesday just to potentially do it all over again the next week.
“It does kind of look, probably, a little crazy on the outside and everything,” Fry told ESPN. “But I enjoy being with the team.”
His movement actually isn’t the most in the league -- former Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman Andre Smith has had 16 transactions in 2021, according to ESPN’s Stats and Information, but Fry is getting close.
Is it ideal? No. But when you play a position where only 32 jobs exist any work to stay on the radar is good work. In some ways, it has allowed Fry to stay in rhythm. Whether he has a job with the Falcons on a particular weekend or not, he’ll work out Tuesday and Thursday at a Charleston gym followed by a kicking session -- sometimes at The Citadel with their specialists.
It’s a way to stay in the normal pacing of an NFL week as if he were on a practice squad or 53-man roster full-time.
“You just kind of got to plan and pretend you’re playing on Sunday,” Fry said. “Just in case that were to happen so if that does happen, you’re ready.”
Falcons special teams coordinator Marquice Williams and head coach Arthur Smith both praised how Fry has handled the situation. They’ve said he has always been ready and prepared just in case the unexpected happens with kicker Younghoe Koo or punter Dustin Colquitt late in a week.
It’s part of the larger plan the Falcons have had all year long as a contingency.
“It’s actually not a bad gig,” Smith said. “He gets paid for the week and he works like two days and he stays ready. He's a professional. We have a lot of faith in him.”
Not that they’ve had to use him. When Smith and Williams first got here, Fry was on the team on a futures contract. Atlanta cut him in May. Then, when the first week of the season rolled around, the Falcons brought him back. And again the next week. And then three times in October -- including the entire week Atlanta traveled to London.
He goes wherever the team goes, preps with them, and the Falcons hope he remains in sweats the entire time.
“We’re not guaranteed, Elliott’s not guaranteed, they haven’t guaranteed what’s happening going forward,” Fry’s agent, Kyle Strongin, said. “It’s just kind of week-to-week situation that is kind of fluid and Elliott’s staying ready and staying fluid and you just got to stay ready and that’s the mantra.”
But both sides have been transparent throughout the entire process. Atlanta has been up front with Fry on a weekly basis. If Fry has had a workout -- like he did with the Chargers -- Fry and Strongin let the Falcons know that, too. It has become somewhat of an opportunity, even though he has not actually kicked in a game this season.
Fry had to initially explain to friends and family what was going on and admitted it was “weird” seeing himself bouncing up and down on the transaction wire. But he gets it. It has been a journey for him, from kicking in the short-lived Alliance of American Football with the Orlando Apollos to time with the Bears, Ravens, Panthers and Buccaneers before finding a sort-of home with Atlanta.
He went from holding down a financial-planning job as a side-gig during his days in the AAF out of South Carolina to forgoing it in search of his NFL dreams when he got his initial NFL shot with the Bears. Breaking into the league as a kicker is hard.
And this keeps him fresh, gets him paid, and keeps his name in the NFL kicking rotation, so why not.
“I joke with my friends and family about it, just getting fired every week,” Fry said. “There’s always the flip side of I’ve been hired five times in the last six weeks. I guess it’s glass half-empty, half-full.
“Obviously it’s not a normal year but it’s kind of just the life of a free-agent kicker.”
