Denver Broncos Terminate WR Contract Before 49ers Game

The Denver Broncos released veteran wide receiver Lil’Jordan Humphrey on Friday, clearing him from the active roster ahead of their Week 4 game against the San Francisco 49ers, via the NFL transaction wire.

The move continues a familiar pattern for the 28-year-old, who has spent much of the season moving on and off Denver’s roster.

Given that history, it would not be surprising if the club brought him back in the coming days, either to the active roster or the practice squad, once the immediate roster math is settled.

Humphrey’s path to the league has never been straightforward. He went undrafted out of Texas in 2019 and signed a three-year deal worth $1.755 million with the New Orleans Saints, only to be waived coming out of the preseason.

The Saints brought him back onto the practice squad and later promoted him to the active roster, but the cycle repeated in 2020, when he was waived again after the preseason and spent most of the year bouncing between the practice squad and the 53-man roster.

New Orleans eventually re-signed him to a futures contract for 2021, extending a relationship built more on persistence than on a fixed role.

From there, Humphrey moved to the New England Patriots. He spent the 2022 season drifting on and off the roster before the Patriots released him in November.

He caught on with Denver in 2023 and returned on a new deal for 2024, giving him his longest stretch of continuity since entering the league.

The New York Giants signed him in 2025, released him before rookie minicamp, and then brought him back shortly afterward.

He again split time between the practice squad and the active roster before Denver signed him to its active roster in November. The Broncos brought him back this past March, setting up another season defined by roster churn rather than a stable weekly role.

Production has been modest but real. In 2025, Humphrey appeared in seven games between the Giants and the Broncos and finished with nine catches for 101 yards and a touchdown.

Those numbers do not mark him as a featured option, but they explain why teams keep circling back to him.

At 6-foot-4, he offers size on the perimeter and in the red zone, and years of practice-squad and active-roster work have made him a low-cost option when injuries or roster limits force a club to reshuffle its receivers.

Friday’s release does not necessarily close the book on his time in Denver. Humphrey has already been waived and re-signed by multiple teams in a single season, and the Broncos have done the same with him more than once.

Until another club claims him or Denver formally moves on, the safer reading is that this is another pause in a career built on returns.