The Sean Payton era did not get off to much of a start in Denver, and a year after the head coach elected to forge ahead and pursue expensive free agents to build around quarterback Russell Wilson, the Broncos appear as wayward as ever.
On the positive side, the Broncos have their first-round pick, but they are short a second, leaving this team with two picks in the top 120 selections (12th, 76th). They are also currently a projected $25 million OVER the cap (per Spotrac), which speaks to how veteran-heavy this roster’s contract structure has become. To further complicate matters, several players who are outperforming their rookie contracts - cornerback Patrick Surtain, guard Quinn Meinerz, and edge rushers Jonathon Cooper and Baron Browning - are entering the fourth seasons of their rookie deals, and while Surtain’s fifth-year option gives them control over their lockdown cornerback, it comes at a hefty price tag.
It all adds up to a team that should be teed up to contend, but Denver didn’t come near contention this season, and there are few obvious paths for them to improve given their lack of available resources. It’s a rough spot to be in, especially because if they cut Wilson, then a dead cap hit of $85 million moves onto their 2024 books, which is a difficult obstacle to navigate.
Then again, the arguments against the “tanked” season in 2023, when that dead cap hit would have been $107 million, don’t look great now. Instead of selling off their assets and swallowing their medicine on this disastrous trade, Denver kicked the can down the road, and after a mediocre 2023, they face the same distasteful options of cutting Wilson and tanking the cap or rolling into the season with Wilson as the starting quarterback.
No Relief in Sight: Denver’s Veteran-Heavy Roster
For everything that Sean Payton accomplished in New Orleans, the Saints were never known as a particularly cap-savvy team, and unfortunately, things have not been different with a new GM (George Paton) in Denver.
If you’ve followed this series, you know I try to take an optimistic tone for every team in the NFL - it’s a lot more fun to look at things that way - and it’s typically true of the Broncos; I’ve spent most of my life in the state, and while my family’s allegiance was to the Packers, it was a lot of fun to watch Broncos games with friends when we were living through the Peyton Manning era. Unfortunately, after watching this team struggle through an 8-9 season that saw them bench their highly-paid franchise quarterback, there don’t appear to be any easy answers here.
A big part of the reason is that Wilson isn’t the only problem; the Broncos aggressively pursued a “good not elite” right tackle in Mike McGlinchey, who had several high-profile flubs out of the gate, and doubled down on an offensive line that was already paying left tackle Garrett Bolles by signing guard Ben Powers to a MASSIVE deal when Dalton Risner, who had turned in four years of solid ball for the Broncos, wound up signing with Minnesota for $3 million and playing at a competent level.
Fast-forward a year, and it doesn’t look good; the Broncos have arguably the most overpaid offensive tackle tandem in the NFL to go along with one of the two most overpaid quarterbacks (Wilson and Cleveland’s Deshaun Watson), and the theme continues at receiver, where Courtland Sutton is scheduled to make $17 million, Jerry Jeudy is scheduled to make $13, and Tim Patrick (who will likely be cut) is scheduled to make $15.5.
Could Marvin Mims break out in Year Two? It’s certainly possible, but I doubt many people think that would put the Broncos over the top; if they don’t do something dramatic, there’s a very good chance the Broncos will be having this exact same discussion a year from now, when Wilson’s dead cap hit would be $50 million and the team would be one year deeper into many of these expensive veteran contracts.
The Los Angeles Rams Approach: Open It Up for Competition
Instead, I would propose the Broncos chart a dramatically different course; cut Wilson, announce that every job is up for grabs, and roll from there.
I can’t say for certain that Denver wouldn’t rebound with Wilson in the fold, but at this point, it’s not an experiment I want to see. The expensive quarterback would be the beginning; if they can acquire draft picks for anyone on the roster, those conversations should be had, and if they fail to come up with a plan that sparks them at the beginning of 2024, then they should have a firesale at the trade deadline. It’s not punting on the season - far from it - but embracing a higher-variance approach instead of hoping this marriage between Payton and Wilson somehow works after the first season ended up with Wilson on the bench.
Could Jacoby Brissett roll in and start for this team? What about Gardner Minshew? There’s also the possibility that Denver could draft a quarterback; with their limited draft capital, it would be hard to move up, but while the “big three” of USC’s Caleb Williams, UNC’s Drake Maye, and LSU’s Jayden Daniels have the brightest spotlight, there are folks out there banging the table for Oregon’s Bo Nix, Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy, and Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. One of those players could certainly surprise, and given the long list of quarterbacks that Sean Payton had success with in New Orleans, going young could be the perfect way to clean up the cap while potentially getting better at the game’s most important position.
It is 2024 in America, so we should not rule out Broncos fans getting a re-run that they do not seem to want, but after Wilson was benched down the stretch, it would seem like a distraction (to say the least) to bring him back for another season. It would cement the Russell Wilson trade as one of the worst deals in NFL history, but it seems unlikely that hanging onto Wilson for another year is going to change that.
Early 2024 Projection: 4th in AFC West