Sean Payton didn’t guarantee anything, but he thinks the Broncos will get their first look this offseason at receiver Courtland Sutton next week.

Sutton hasn’t participated in the voluntary portion of the offseason program so far, but next week’s three-day minicamp is mandatory, and the second-year coach said he expects his top receiver will be there.

“Yeah I think he’ll be here,” Payton said. “I mean, it’s mandatory. … There’s a list of things that race through your mind this time in the offseason as a head coach and, respectfully to him when I say this, I think (his situation) will work itself out.

“I think he’ll be here, yeah, but I don’t know that for sure.”

Payton’s been complimentary of Sutton in recent weeks and has said previously he’s not concerned about the 29-year-old skipping the voluntary work.

Asked directly if Sutton’s absence is about a contract dispute, which has been widely reported and assumed, Payton quipped, “Well it’s not that he doesn’t like the new uniforms.”

Sutton will incur fines if he misses the three-day minicamp and then more if he doesn’t report for training camp in late July. He has two years left on his contract, but only $2 million of $26.5 million remaining on his deal is guaranteed.

Payton, though, made it clear that he considers the mandatory part of the offseason, well, mandatory.

“This was more of an issue before the 2011 CBA,” Payton said of holdouts. “Training camp, it was very normal to have a player or two that wasn’t signed yet. Then after 2011 it wasn’t as much of an issue. Guys staging away from OTAs, that will happen and guys will occasionally miss a day and let’s go, we’re training. …

“Don’t come away from this with, ‘He’s threatening to fine him.’ The mandatory part of the offseason is the minicamp and then training camp is mandatory.”

OTA change?: Payton said he’s tried not to go too deep into considering a recently floated NFL Players Association proposal that essentially restructures the offseason program.

Instead of OTAs and then minicamp this time of year and then a break from mid-June until training camp’s start, the proposed change would include an OTA-style ramp-up to camp that would begin as early as late June or early July and roll right into training camp.

“Is it three, four, five years from now? I don’t know,” Payton said. “I try anymore to focus on the things that are right here. When you get older, you hear those things and you’re just like, ‘I don’t have to worry about that right now.’

“Ultimately you’re going to have a period of time when the players are working and a period of time when they’re gone. I think I have a grasp of what the proposal is and it just is what it is. We’ll worry about it when we get there.”

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