Fixing the Disaster that is the Denver Broncos
The plan is simple: we get rid of everyone (except the bad QB who is too expensive to ditch)
The Denver Broncos are the worst franchise in the NFL and it isn’t particularly close. Since their last playoff appearance (their Super Bowl 50 victory), they have been inept at best. All the talk of how this team was a quarterback away from relevancy last year looks foolish, and there is only one solution to this problem.
Blow it up.
All of it.
All. Of. It.
Nathaniel Hackett is mercifully gone, and the man who hired him, George Paton, should follow him out the door even though ownership gave him a vote of confidence today. Fire everyone in the front office. Fire everyone on the coaching staff. Fire everyone who has even been tangentially associated with this trainwreck since 2016. The whole point of this exercise is to bring in an entirely new team bereft of the stink that the donkeys have accumulated. Spiritually this team is the Detroit Lions. Tweaking around the edges and thinking there are core players to build around is a mistake. The team needs an exorcism, and the only solution is to trade every single piece that they possibly can and start over—especially the most valuable pieces.
Let’s walk through how this would work, starting with the big contracts.
Russell Wilson
I’m starting with the only guy they won’t trade because they can’t. The hope that some sucker would come along and offer a 7th round pick for the walking albatross that is Russell is cooked Wilson’s contract is laughable. The Jets aren’t even that desperate. Cutting him would give Denver $82M in dead cap space next year along with $49.6M in 2024, so the Broncos are stuck with this nanobubbled schmuck until 2024 at the earliest.
Justin Simmons
One of the best safeties in the NFL in his athletic prime should be at the top of the list of players the Broncos should trade. He could net a first round pick, or at the very worst a second round pick and an additional pick(s), so for the sake of optmism let’s say the Broncos can trade him for a 2nd and a 3rd rounder (which seems eminently reasonable considering Jamal Adams went for two first round picks).
Randy Gregory
After getting benched for playing selfish football and then throwing a punch after the Christmas game, most of Broncos Country would drive Gregory to the airport themselves if it meant getting him off the team. His large contract makes it a bit tough, but before he was injured earlier this season, he was one of the best pass rushers in the NFL. Let’s say the Broncos could get a 2nd round pick for a good knuckleheaded player at a premium position.
Courtland Sutton
Sutton’s bonafide #1 wide receiever status took a hit this year as he has battled through injuries and drops, but he’s still a very good player that a team could cut with ease after next year should it not work out. This is another potential 2nd round pick the Broncos could snag for a Pro Bowl-caliber player at a premium position.
D.J. Jones
Denver’s second biggest free agent signing this past offseason has been fine, but he was brought in to stop the run and yesterday the Broncos defense made Cam Akers look like Emmitt Smith. Thanks to the NFL’s shenanigans with guaranteed money, he also can be cut after next year should things not work out, but given that he does not play a premium position, the best the Broncos could hope to get for him is a 3rd round pick, but far likelier it’s a 4th or 5th.
Josey Jewell
The veteran middle linebacker has been very solid, and even though he doesn’t play a position high in demand, his consistency and the fact he only has one year left on his deal would put him in demand should Denver try to trade him, so let’s say that the donkeys could get a 5th round pick for a bonafide starting middle linebacker.
Tim Patrick
This one is a bit trickier because even though he has been one of the steadiest wide recievers in the league his entire career, he is coming off a major injury and brings an $11.5M cap hit next year. Like many of the Broncos contracts, teams can cut him for relatively cheap after next season, so perhaps Denver could find a taker, but it’s hard to see how they could get more than a 4th round pick for Patrick at this point. Still, the idea here is to literally blow the whole team up and start anew, so if someone wants him, Denver should trade him for whatever they can get. Call it a 5th for the purposes of this column.
Jerry Jeudy
This one is also tricky because Jeudy is a free agent at the end of next year, so a team would likely want to work out an extension with the former first round pick before trading for him. Given how he has been the lone good player on the Denver offense this season, the Broncos would be justified in asking for a first round pick, but given his injury history it’s far likelier they would get either a 2nd or 3rd for Jeudy plus another one. Let’s say they get a 2nd and a 4th for him.
Baron Browning
Now we’re cooking with gas. Everyone in the previous section is expensive and good, and now we are moving on to the cheap but good players Denver could whip up a bidding frenzy around. Browning played well enough this year to make Bradley Chubb a luxury for Denver, and if they put him on the trade block, they would net at minimum a second round pick for a player they drafted in the third round, and given the demand for cheap and effective edge rushers, they may even be able to squeak a first out of a contending team in salary cap hell. Let’s say they get a 2nd and a 5th for Browning.
Quinn Meinerz
Another mid-round pick that looks to be a solid starter at worst, Meinerz has been the lone bright spot on a dismal Denver offensive line this year. He has not shown moments of elite play like Browning has, and he plays a position most teams don’t fill until day two or day three of the draft, so it’s hard to see how Denver could command a ton for him—but still, Meinerz is a third-round pick who looks to be a starter, so a third rounder plus another late pick seems like a reasonable expectation (call it a 5th).
Javonte Williams
It’s not often you see teams give up picks to acquire running backs given how easily replacable they are through the draft, but Williams’ smash-mouth running style and vision along with his cheap contract would put him in demand. Coming off a major injury, it’s not likely the Broncos get an equal return for the second round pick, but a third or fourth rounder for a running back is something they should jump at the opportunity for.
Greg Dulcich
After just a few NFL games, Dulcich looks like a pretty good recieving tight end. His cheap contract signed through 2025 would very much put him in-demand, and the Broncos could likely get a 3rd round pick and another pick for a player they drafted in the 3rd round this past year. Call it a 3rd and a 5th.
Patrick Surtain II
And here is what this was all building towards. If the donkeys are serious about blowing it up and starting over, this is the guy they trade. The 9th overall pick from the 2020 draft is already in the discussion for best corner in the league, and given his cheap contract through 2024 and his age, teams would be falling all over each other to acquire a player who looks like he will be in every Pro Bowl for the rest of this decade. Three years ago, the Rams gave up two first round picks and a fourth round pick for 25 year-old Jalen Ramsey.
The difference with Surtain is that the Rams had to turn around and give the stud cornerback a massive contract right away. Given that Surtain is three years younger than Ramsey was and he has two years left on his rookie deal, he should net more in a trade than Ramsey did. Let’s get optimistic and say that Denver gets roughly the same return, two firsts and a fourth, but with a second and a sixth round pick thrown in to boot.
Cuts
Graham Glasgow is a backup offensive lineman who Denver can save $11M by cutting. Ronald Darby has had his #2 corner spot usurped by a 4th round rookie and the Broncos can save $11M by cutting him. Garrett Bolles, the former Pro Bowl left tackle coming off a major injury, could potentially be traded for a late round pick, but given that Denver can save $10M by cutting him, teams would likely wait the Broncos out. Chase Edmonds has zero guaranteed money next year and Denver would save $6M by letting him go, and Jake Martin would get them an extra $4M in cap space. Longtime kicker Brandon McManus has fallen off a bit as of late, and Denver could save about $2.5M by letting him go. Albert O has been in street clothes for most of this season so his extra $1M is definitely getting freed up, while another disappointing player from his draft class, Michael Ojemudia, would also free up $1M.
Net Return
If the Broncos made all the trades above, they would have 24 picks in this upcoming draft and would replace their first round pick next year.
1st: two picks (and one next year)
2nd: six picks
3rd: four picks
4th: six picks
5th: four picks
6th: two picks
Factoring in the cuts would mean that Denver would go into next season with $103,569,138 in cap space. If you’re looking for a way to make the worst contract in the NFL look a little less bad, this is how you do it. Should Russell Wilson continue to play himself out of the league in the next two years, this plan would make eating his inevitable $68M dead cap figure a lot more palatable considering practically the entire roster would still be on their rookie contracts at that point.
A lot of the discussion today centers around how the Broncos can make this work with Russell Wilson, and it makes sense given that they have no choice. His contract forces the team to try to find a workable offense with him at the helm of it, but given his extreme regression this year, the far likelier route Denver should be planning for is how to survive a post-Russell Wilson world. His contract runs through 2028, but at this point it seems likelier that I will be starting for the Broncos than Russ will by then. He has always struggled with some pretty normal QB plays (namely, throwing over the middle of the field because he’s too small to see over the linemen in front of him), and Seattle was able to get a lot out of him by running a fairly limited offense that focused on what he was good at (namely, chucking it and scrambling around). His scrambling ability has fallen off pretty dramatically the past few years, which was the source of what made him so special in the first place. Now the Broncos are stuck with a short, not that mobile QB who can only make deep throws and takes a ton of sacks while becoming increasingly turnover-prone. That’s not conducive to an efficient NFL offense, and it’s hard to see how Russell Wilson will ever come remotely close to justifying the NFL’s worst contract.
Denver needs to start thinking about how it will construct a roster around Russ’s large dead cap figures when they inevitably accept that he is a backup QB at best. That’s the far likelier route than finding a way to improve his play to the point where that contract becomes justifiable.
I started this column out half-joking about this idea but the more I think about it, putting an entire roster of rookie contracts around Russell Wilson (and using the picks to draft a quarterback) is probably their only way out of the biggest mess in the NFL. The only other potential way out of this is if the Waltons offer Russ like $1 billion to retire. Whatever happens with this joke of a franchise this offseason, it better be drastic, or else the shitshow will continue unabated for at least another few years.