The Broncos seem confident Brock Osweiler will be back

The Denver Broncos have been pretty ‘chill’ about bringing back Brock Osweiler, while the fan base has been split over who should be the new QB…

Doesn’t it seem like the Broncos and John Elway are a little overly calm, cool, and collected about what is going to happen with Brock Osweiler? Perhaps they should be.

Osweiler, who just completed the final year of his rookie contract, has started six games in the NFL. He proved himself this past season as worthy of at least first dibs on the starting gig in Denver when Peyton Manning moves on, which is taking a lot longer than expected.

The way Manning is approaching his decision (or, lack thereof) doesn’t seem to be flustering the Broncos, nor does the thought that Osweiler could soon be hitting the free agent market. The Broncos seem relatively confident in their offer to Osweiler, which John Elway said would not be his biggest NFL contract.

Clearly, the Broncos have set up the framework to offer Osweiler what they believe to be a very fair deal considering there’s been virtually no precedence for his market. There have been other young quarterbacks with upside near his age to hit the market, but nothing quite like Osweiler, who was drafted to sit behind Peyton Manning for a couple of years, be handed the keys to the organization, and hopefully earn a new contract a little bit easier than this.

Because of Manning’s injury and ineffective play this past season, Osweiler was pressed into action, but what if he wasn’t? Would his value as a 25-year old QB with upside still be the same? The sample size isn’t near large enough for the Broncos to consider offering Osweiler more than $12 million annually, and because of the contracts coming up defensively, they can’t afford that anyway.

My guess is, the Broncos are comfortable with their offer to Osweiler, but I also get the sense they are comfortable he’s going to accept it, whatever it is. I can’t even begin to guess at what the parameters of the deal would be, how the Broncos would shuffle around the guarantees to lower his cap hit, or what incentives Osweiler would be okay accepting. The only thing I can say at this point is I have this overwhelming sense that Osweiler is not going to try and leave Denver for the most money he can, simply because he is still so young, and a large annual commitment from another team is going to come with more years than he will want to give.

Osweiler will have the opportunity to play out a two or three year deal with the Broncos at a nice amount of guaranteed money that will also allow him to play for that ‘big’ contract in a couple of seasons when he’s still going into the prime years of his career. He’s grown in Denver, he has a great situation in Denver, and Osweiler strikes me as the kind of guy that doesn’t necessarily prefer playing for $13 or $14 million in Cleveland or even Houston over $10-12 million in Denver.

I could be way off on that, but that’s the way it feels right now.

The Broncos are either really comfortable with their offer to Osweiler, or they have a great ‘Plan B’.