The legal tampering period for this year’s NFL free agency period begins today at 12:00 PM (EST). While teams can’t officially announce they have agreed to terms until the beginning of the new league year on Wednesday at 2:00 PM (EST), negotiations between players, agents and potential new teams can be done.
Will the Denver Broncos make a splash early on as they have in years past? You’ll just have to tune in to find out. My hunch is that they will. Over the course of the offseason, Head Coach Sean
Payton and George Paton talked about being aggressive to make the roster better.
Without question, the time for the Broncos to maximize their Super Bowl window is now. Before the rubber meets the road, let’s take a look at Denver’s current salary cap situation.
Broncos Salary Cap Outlook
The Broncos are finally free of any dead money absorbed from moving on from Russell Wilson. According to Spotrac, the Broncos currently have around $20 million in cap space. That figure includes Ja’Quan McMillian who received a second-round FA tender that places his cap number at $5.767 million for the upcoming 2026 season. It also factors in the handful of ERFA signings Denver made several days ago.
However, it doesn’t include the two-year extension for Alex Palczewski, the three-year extensions for Justin Strnad and Adam Trautman, and the one-year deals for Nate Adkins and Sam Ehlinger. It’s safe to say Denver is operating at roughly half of what Spotrac currently mentions.
The Broncos can certainly create more space and have already done so
The good news? Denver has numerous ways to create more space. So don’t worry Broncos Country, if Denver wants to be aggressive—they have all the flexibility in the world to do so. Quinn Meinerz had a simple restructure done that opened up $11 million in space, which will help take care of most of the first-year hits for the in-house extensions above.
They could approach veteran players such as edge rusher Jonathon Cooper, safety Talanoa Hufanga, and offensive linemen Mike McGlinchey about simple restructures. Even just one or two moves would add a substantial amount of cap space—more than enough to make a splash or two and help round out the rest of the roster.
While it would kick some more money down the road, such restructures wouldn’t be inhibitive with regard to roster building endeavors down the road. The move outlined above would net the Broncos over $11 million in savings—likely making up for the in-house signings listed earlier.
Additionally, several cuts or trades could give them some relief as well. A potential candidate to be released is offensive lineman Matt Peart. The Broncos can save $3.225 million on the salary cap and only incur $750,000 in dead money by released Matt Peart. With Palczewski receiving a new deal and being the team’s sixth offensive lineman, this seems quite possible.
Additionally, there have been rumors that backup quarterback Jarrett Stidham is generating some interest via trade. If Denver opted to deal him, they would save an additional $6.5 million in cap space and take on $1.5 million in dead money. Though I’m skeptical this is a direction they will go—considering they would have to go out and spend on a backup quarterback to replace him.
