As first reported by Gil Whitely on Mile High Sports, on Friday March 24th, and confirmed by Benjamin Allbright on the radio, the Broncos and Cowboys did engage in preliminary discussions regarding a trade for Tony Romo.
This is how the Romo to Denver deal may happen. . .3-24-17 Gil has Breaking news about Tony Romo https://t.co/D8ucOUjn64 via @audioBoom
— Gil Whiteley (@Gilfest) March 24, 2017
The package would have included a late round pick, in exchange for Tony Romo on a restructured deal.
The contract that has been proposed would be a 3-year deal, paying Romo a $1 million base salary with a $13 million signing bonus. This would allow Romo to make his entire $14 million he was scheduled to make this year, but allow the Broncos to take only a $5.33 million cap hit for the 2017 season.
The deal also was expected to include injury protection year-to-year. This is similar to what Peyton Manning did with his deal, to ensure the Broncos had protection each year in case he didn’t hold up.
So what happened? Likely the price tag got a bit too high for the Broncos. Or perhaps Elway just hasn’t shown his full hand yet.
Keep in mind that this same scenario played out a year ago during the Broncos pursuit of Colin Kaepernick. The Broncos offered a late round pick for weeks, and were rebuffed by the 49ers.
Eventually the 49ers granted Kaepernick permission to meet with Elway. Following their first of two meetings, Elway upped his offer to a fourth round pick, and the Broncos and Niners ended up agreeing in principle to a trade. Of course the whole thing fell apart when Kaepernick refused a pay cut, but there is still a precedence for this.