What a difference a year can make.
On the first day of the NFL’s free agency negotiating period a year ago, freshly minted head coach Sean Payton and the Broncos’ brass shelled out $128 million in guaranteed money to six players, transformed their offensive line, signed quarterback Jarrett Stidham and eventually went down as one of the league’s top spenders.
It was, among other things, a flashing neon light illuminating the goal for Payton’s first offseason: get bigger and stronger, build from the front line out on offense, and prepare for a Year 1 playoff run.
On Monday, the first day of the NFL’s free agency negotiating period this year, the Broncos once again signaled their intent, but by different means.
They’re going to be strategic — the exact word general manager George Paton used at last month’s NFL Combine — rather than swinging for the fences. They’re going to try to get younger and cheaper rather than shelling out big bucks in free agency. They appear to be setting up for the longer haul — albeit without forfeiting all hope for the coming season — rather than gearing up primarily for the here and now.
The sum total of Denver’s Monday: The team agreed to terms with safety Brandon Jones on a three-year, $20 million deal ($12.5 million guaranteed) and kicker Wil Lutz on a two-year contract. They also watched as center Lloyd Cushenberry agreed to a four-year deal with Tennessee worth a reported $50 million ($30 million in total guarantees, according to Pro Football Focus).
The Jones signing and Cushenberry cash-in each tell plenty about where the Broncos are headed.
Jones has played a lot of football – 30 starts and 54 career games — and is clearly a player Denver believes can be a starter. He also still has relative football youth on his side as he enters his second contract. Drafted 12 spots ahead of Cushenberry in the 2020 draft, the former Texas standout turns 26 early next month.
He will join a pair of former Longhorns in the Broncos safety room in P.J. Locke and Caden Sterns. Locke agreed to a two-year deal with the Broncos on the eve of free agency and the team announced his signing Monday afternoon.
The exact structure of Jones’ contract, and thus his 2024 cap number, was not entirely clear Monday. But it’s possible that, when combined with Locke’s $2.5 million cap hit and Sterns’ $1.14 million mark, the trio will only approach about half of the $14.5 million the Broncos saved when they released 30-year-old Justin Simmons on Thursday.
Even if Jones and Locke each max out the value of their deals — $22.5 million for Jones, $9 million for Locke — they combine to equal about half the $61 million extension Simmons signed in 2021.
Denver figured it couldn’t quite get by with its in-house options, given the fact that 2023 sixth-rounder JL Skinner didn’t appear on defense until Week 18 and Delarrin Turner-Yell is set to miss maybe half the 2024 season or more with a major knee injury. But it could add a player in Jones and feel good about replacing Simmons’ production if not his leadership.
It’s a similar story with Cushenberry, whom the Broncos liked and wanted to keep. All the same, the market for interior offensive linemen has taken off this spring and Denver couldn’t get a deal done before Cushenberry tested the market.
When he did, Tennessee jumped at the chance to make him one of the top-paid centers in football.
Where will Denver turn? Most likely to in-house options Alex Forsyth or Luke Wattenberg.
“We really value Lloyd and thought he had his best season,” Paton said at the NFL combine. “We’d love to have Lloyd back. But then, what’s behind Lloyd? We feel good about Wattenberg. We feel really good about Forsyth. We feel like there’s depth. That doesn’t mean we’re not going to sign Lloyd. We’d love to sign him. But we do feel like that’s a position we do have quality depth, and one of those guys could be a starter eventually.”
The same principle applies to Denver’s decision to trade receiver Jerry Jeudy late last week to Cleveland in exchange for the 135th and 202nd picks in the draft. Denver cleared $12.987 million in cap space and cleared the road for Marvin Mims Jr. to take on an expanded role in one fell swoop.
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The first day of free agency — combined with the moves the Broncos have already made — followed along the same course.
There’s much more to be done, of course. Denver is working through the quarterback market. It could use help at tight end, the defensive front seven, corner and even receiver or running back. They have comfortably more than $20 million in cap space left and can create more if needed, so they’re not limited to exclusively bargain-bin hunting.
If Day 1 is any indication, Denver will fill holes where needed but also leave room for the young and inexpensive players on their roster to move up the depth chart.
If they can do all of that and still take on a big chunk of former quarterback Russell Wilson’s dead money this year (counting an additional $17.6 million against the cap in 2024 for a total of $53 million), expediting the timeline to a more flexible salary cap reality, all the better.
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