Cap Expert Illustrates Broncos' Recovery from Russell Wilson Fallout

The Broncos currently rank No. 13 in dead-money being carried on the salary cap. After being No. 1 last year, the NFL has seemingly caught up to the Broncos when it comes to living with the consequences of making bad decisions.

The Contract, Not the Trade, Was the Mother of Bad Decisions

Wilson was one of those bad decisions. It's hard to fault Broncos GM George Paton for making the trade with the Seattle Seahawks in 2022, which included the relinquishing of multiple first and second-round picks and three starters in exchange for an 11th-year quarterback with nine Pro Bowls on his resume.

The Broncos needed a franchise quarterback desperately. It had been one swing and a miss after another since Peyton Manning hung up his cleats. And most indicators pointed to Wilson still having plenty enough in the tank to project and expect an impact in Denver commensurate with the cost to acquire him.

Those projections turned out to be woefully inaccurate, but it's hard to say whether that was due to Wilson simply being spent or the preceding bad decision to hire Nathaniel Hackett as head coach. On its face, though, it's hard to fault Paton for making the Wilson trade based on what was known at the time and the lay of the land in Denver.

Where this thing really goes off the rails was the quarter-billion-dollar extension the Broncos paid Wilson before ever seeing him even take one snap in a game that counted. That's what Paton lived to rue.

The Sickest Part

The twisted irony of the Wilson extension is that by the time he'd been benched by Sean Payton and released, he'd yet to even play a down of the new contract. The two years Wilson spent in Denver were played on his Seattle contract, so all that dead money — which consisted of prepaid bonuses and guaranteed money — he never played a down to earn it.

But that's the way NFL contracts work, especially for quarterbacks and any high-profile player. A deal will include tens or in Wilson's case, hundreds of millions of dollars with a certain amount of guaranteed money, and a good chunk of the contract's total value will be paid out right away in the form of a signing bonus.

When a player fails to last long enough to play on that contract and he's already been paid a signing bonus, now you see where dead money comes into play. It can be quite painful for teams, depending on the scale of the bad contract given out, and it's the risk they run when signing a player to a lucrative multi-year deal with a big signing bonus and heavy guarantees.

Wilson got $50 million as a signing bonus in the fall of 2022 and total guarantees of $124 million. Ouch.

Pain Management

In Denver's case, the pain was on tectonic scale, and were it not for the presence of Payton and his coaching staff, and the organization's savvy decision to spend its 2024 first-round pick on Nix ( it's first since drafting Patrick Surtain II at No. 9 overall in 2021), that suffering would still be felt today. And in some ways, the pain is still being felt.

Even though the Broncos have the wealthiest ownership in the league, they have $33 million on the salary cap that they, by NFL rule, cannot spend on players to bolster the roster, while their rivals and peers across the fruited plain can. It's encouraging to see the Broncos no longer in the top 10 in dead money, but take notice that neither the Kansas City Chiefs nor the Los Angeles Chargers — who finished first and second, respectively, in the AFC West last year — are listed in the top 14.

The Las Vegas Raiders are in the top 14, with $44 million in dead money this year. This is only to illustrate how the impact of Wilson's anvil of a contract is still weighing down the Broncos, even if it's no longer the sharp, acute, withering pain that it was last year.

Youth Brigade

With Payton's encouragement, the Broncos ripped the Wilson band-aid off. That necessitated getting skinny on the salary cap, which led to multiple painful player departures, including Justin Simmons, and it also meant that Denver had to get young.

The Broncos relied on their rookie class and the youth of their roster, and it yielded spectacular results. That's a credit to Paton and Payton, but especially the Broncos' coaching staff.

There was a reason that Vegas set the Broncos' over/under win total last year at 5.5 wins. As indignant as fans were, on paper, it simply seemed like too many obstacles to overcome, but the Broncos did it.

Nix's emergence was the tip of that spear, but under the guidance of Payton's coaching staff, think of how many young players emerged in 2024. Rush linebacker Nik Bonitto became an All-Pro. Surtain became the first Bronco to win Defensive Player of the Year since Randy Gradishar.

Quinn Meinerz fully turned the corner at right guard. Jonathon Cooper totaled 10.5 sacks opposite of Bonitto. Heck, the Broncos had five players named to the Associated Press' All-Pro Team, the most since the 1990s.

Credit Payton. And cut Paton some slack, too.

Bottom Line

Even though it's tough to absolve Paton of wrongdoing in the part he played as GM in the Wilson extension, the Walton/Penner ownership group was purportedly the squeaky wheel in those proceedings, although it was Wilson who got the grease.

Broncos Country now has much to be thankful for. When you're counting your lucky stars at night, just make sure one of them is Bo Chapman Nix.