Broncos Need To Lock Up Demaryius Thomas As Soon As Possible
It’s becoming more and more clear by the day — the Denver Broncos need to find a way to lock Demaryius Thomas in to a long-term contract as soon as humanly possible.
I’ve personally been on the fence about whether or not the Broncos should pay Demaryius Thomas long-term, because he’s going to want plenty of cash. The hard part of all this is, do you pay Thomas what Calvin Johnson is getting paid, or on that same level? How does that affect your salary cap implications long-term?
As much as I have questioned the attempt at re-signing Thomas long-term, it’s becoming clearer to me that the Broncos need to keep him happy and make him one of the highest paid receivers in the NFL for a number of reasons.
I get that the trend in the NFL today is to spend money elsewhere and teams that are winning Super Bowls aren’t paying receivers anywhere near the amount of money the Broncos are talking about paying Demaryius Thomas, but that isn’t necessarily a deal breaker for me.
Every team is constructed differently, and it’s not the Broncos’ fault they made a good draft pick and have one of the best receivers in the league. Those types of players don’t often hit the open market. We’ve seen players like Mike Wallace get vastly overpaid on the open market, but even Wallace’s big numbers in Pittsburgh pale in comparison to what Thomas has done the last three years with the Broncos.
Part of my sudden change of heart is the fact that the Broncos have declined to pay other star players that were on the roster and producing at a very high level. They didn’t want to pay Eric Decker after the 2013 season, and we were all fine with that. They didn’t want to pay Julius Thomas this past year, and we were all fine with that.
They have decided to not give out big money, long-term contracts to star offensive players, even one drafted by John Elway himself in Julius Thomas, but that trend has to end. The Broncos vastly underpaid for Chris Harris Jr., and they were lucky he wanted to stay in Denver above all else.
I’m not so sure Demaryius Thomas feels like he has to stay in Denver to be successful, especially since Peyton Manning is likely to retire after this season. John Elway is not in a real position of leverage with Thomas. He can bide his time, wait this franchise tender out, and he doesn’t have to practice a single day this offseason if he doesn’t want to and in the grand scheme of things, it’s not really going to cost him much of anything.
Even if Thomas decided to show up the week before the Broncos’ first game, he’d probably be the most sought after free agent on the 2016 market, because we all know the Broncos are placing the franchise tag on Von Miller unless a long-term deal is worked out there in the near future.
If the Broncos let go of Thomas, it also sets a bad precedence that if you perform, you will have to take the team’s low-ball offer or go make your money elsewhere. The Broncos have to show they are willing to pay up for their own, especially after getting Chris Harris signed up at a reduced price.
I realize there are plenty of moving parts here, but moving on from all of these other players seems to indicate to me the Broncos have been planning on paying someone on the offensive side of the ball not named Peyton Manning. They are letting everyone else go, and while they do, the cupboard is needing a nice re-stock, and they don’t have a ton of guys necessarily waiting in the wings to take over for DT should he be let go.
And how can you let go of a guy like that? It wouldn’t be wise of the Broncos to let him walk to another team, where he would undoubtedly be a dominant player. As that video above talks about, Thomas is the kind of player who will put up big numbers no matter who is throwing him the football. He is a special talent.
The Broncos would be wise to recognize that and give Thomas a fair deal, or they’ll watch him walk away and get nothing in return.