Denver Post Broncos writer Parker Gabriel posts his Broncos Mailbag weekly during the season and periodically during the offseason. Click here to submit a question.
Hi Parker, longtime Arizona Broncos fan here (lots of family in Colorado). Appreciate reading your mailbag and Broncos’ insight (along with Mark Kiszla’s). Disappointed in how the Russell Wilson trade worked out, was optimistic about Denver finally being out of QB purgatory (pun intended). What are your thoughts on the Broncos possibly pursuing Justin Fields or other top prospects in the draft?
— DJK, Prescott, Ariz.
Hey DJK, thanks for writing in and getting us going this week. Indeed, it’s setting up to be a quarterback-centric offseason for the Broncos. As a baseline, let’s assume that Denver cuts Wilson before March 17. If the club takes the entire $85 million dead cap number in 2024 (doesn’t seem particularly likely, but it’s not technically impossible), the options are going to be slim from a financial standpoint. It’s still not pretty if they split it $35.4 million in 2024 and $49.6 million in 2025, but you could maybe squeeze a low-to-mid-market free agent in there with the understanding that it means your quarterback room, practically speaking, is going to be very expensive.
There’s obviously an in-house option in Jarrett Stidham, who is under contract through 2024. And then there are a lot of other avenues to explore. The most logical answer here at this point is that the Broncos brass is probably going to traverse many of them.
Free agency begins in mid-March. The draft is in late April. Besides that, as you suggested with Fields, there are any number of trades to kick the tires on. Maybe Chicago will opt to roll with him into the future. Certainly, his play late in the season doesn’t hurt his trade value any if the Bears decide to draft a quarterback with the top pick. Is it… actually an exciting time to be a Chicago fan?
One of the byproducts of all the quarterback injuries this year is that so many No. 2s have received serious playing time. That makes evaluating them at least a step easier. A quarterback-needy team might think differently about Jake Browning in Cincinnati than it did last summer. Or Gardner Minshew. The list goes on. There are also guys like Malik Willis in Tennessee, a third-round pick in 2022 in a spot where Will Levis appears to be the guy long-term. Or Sam Darnold, who’s been trying to reboot in San Francisco. These are just a few examples — it’s a long offseason and there will probably be a ton of names thrown out — but they highlight the myriad ways you can go shopping for a quarterback and also the scarcity of no-doubt options.
Besides Russell Wilson, which other Broncos are possibilities of being run out of town by Sean Payton?
— Ed Helinski, Auburn, N.Y.
Hey Ed, thanks for writing in as always. More than Payton running players out of town, as you put it, there’s bound to be turnover this offseason for two reasons: A) It’s the NFL and there always is and B) the Broncos have work to do in terms of their salary cap position for 2024.
Again, some of it is going to depend on how Denver handles the cap fallout of Wilson’s contract. A post-June 1 designation, according to Over the Cap, doesn’t change Denver’s picture for 2024: Wilson would count $35.4 million just like he would if he were actually on the roster. The Broncos by OTC’s numbers are currently about $18 million over a projected cap number for next year. It’s easy to move money around without actually cutting players, but the bill always comes due at some point. We’ll be covering some of this in much more detail in the coming weeks, but here are a couple of groups of players:
Impending free agents include center Lloyd Cushenberry, inside linebacker Josey Jewell, safety P.J. Locke, tight end Adam Trautman and cornerback Fabian Moreau.
Players with big current 2024 cap numbers that could lead to extensions, restructures, trades or cuts include: LT Garett Bolles ($20 million), S Justin Simmons ($18.25 million), WR Courtland Sutton ($17.325 million), WR Tim Patrick ($16.072 million), WR Jerry Jeudy ($12.987 million) and DT D.J. Jones ($12.988 million). That’s before last year’s free agent class — guys like RT Mike McGlinchey, DL Zach Allen and LG Ben Powers.
Not all of those guys will be playing elsewhere in 2024, obviously, and many of them might be back. Not likely all of them, however. No matter how you slice it, the Broncos’ 2024 cap picture and the vision for next year’s roster, as Payton likes to put it, begins with this group of players.
Parker, it seems like the root of all the Broncos’ problems can be laid at the feet of George Paton. Hiring the hack, signing Disasta-Russ to a huge contract with two years remaining before he throws a pass, Randy Gregory, trading Von Miller, trading Bradley Chubb, etc. Any chance he will be held accountable or are we looking at years more of bad front office management?
— Paul Heaton, Atlanta
Hey Paul, thanks for writing!
Certainly, Paton has seen his highest-profile moves backfire. Nathaniel Hackett wasn’t ready to be a head coach. The Russell Wilson trade has been a mess. The combination of those two mistakes helped lead Denver to ship more draft capital out to trade for the right to hire Sean Payton. And the impact of the Wilson trade will be felt on the roster for years to come even if he’s playing elsewhere.
In terms of the extension, agreeing to do one before the season started was part of the negotiation to get Wilson to waive his no-trade clause and greenlight the trade. Now, did the Broncos have to go there? Were they competing at that time against several other teams? Debatable. Of course, it all looks bad in retrospect. But I’d say the way to look at the extension, in particular, is to ask if you’d have been willing to walk away from the table in March 2022 and not make the deal over the extension. Or what it would have said about your conviction in making the deal if you unloaded all of that capital to acquire him, then said, “Yeah, we sold the farm, but only for the chance to see if this works.”
On the other fronts … Yeah, Gregory played 10 games here and that one looked risky from Jump Street given the injury history. Not sure I agree with putting the Miller and Chubb trades in there. Paton did well in those deals. Obviously, it’s never easy to trade a guy who’s as central to the franchise as Miller was, but in terms of return, both looked good at the time and have held up.
I suppose my question here is what’s your definition of accountability? Just getting fired? Is anybody under the impression that Paton’s role is the same now as it was 18 months ago, even if he has the same title? He was heavily involved in the coaching search last winter, but CEO Greg Penner led it. Paton is in charge of personnel, but Payton clearly has a major say in roster decisions. Much more so than Hackett or Vic Fangio did.
The fire/hire cycle for front office folks typically revolves more around the draft compared to coaches, where it’s the regular season. Maybe Penner likes the Paton/Payton duo, the braintrust’s decision-making processes, and Paton’s ability to find talent in the draft. Or maybe change is ahead. Time will tell.
Hey Parker, we need an overhaul on the offense in the offseason. We’re 26th in the league in yards passing. I love Courtland Sutton, but we need more targets for whoever’s going to be our quarterback next year. Jerry Jeudy has been disappointing (we shouldn’t pick up his fifth-year option) and Marvin Mims Jr.’s had growing pains during his rookie year. I know a healthy Greg Dulcich would open up the field but we need a solid No. 2 receiver and I don’t see any of our guys are better than a No. 3 option. What do you think?
— Mike, Denver
Hey Mike, good thoughts. Doesn’t it seem like the receiver room’s been teetering on the edge of big changes for pretty much a year at this point? Hasn’t happened yet, but perhaps it will this offseason. Or at least some changes.
A couple of points: Jeudy’s fifth-year option is already picked up, hence the $12.987 million guarantee for 2024. It’s not impossible to push the next decision out to next fall’s trade deadline, but it feels like the Broncos should address the question this summer: Trade him or extend him.
There’s good news and bad news on the receiver front: The good news is that 2024 is shaping up to be another loaded draft class at receiver. Let’s say the Broncos end up at No. 14, where they currently sit. Marvin Harrison, Jr., Malik Nabers and Rome Odunze all could easily be off the board, but there are other really good players who could end up going in the first round.
The bad news: Denver’s got a lot of draft needs and not all that many darts to throw. They traded their second-round pick to New Orleans in the Payton trade but then had two third-rounders. They traded one of them (whichever is lower) to Seattle to move up and draft Riley Moss.
So currently they have six picks and only two are on the first two days of the draft.
This is going to be the challenge this offseason. Can Denver generate the draft capital and financial flexibility to upgrade without simply pushing a ton of money to the future (aka maxing out the credit card) while working around the Wilson contract fallout?
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