Denver Broncos: Projecting market value of in-house free agents

Bradley Roby, Cornerback

Age: 26 (27 in May)

The Broncos’ upcoming decision of whether or not to re-sign Bradley Roby is going to be one of the most interesting of the entire offseason.

Roby has been up-and-down in his five seasons with the Broncos. When the rest of the defense was great, Roby’s weaknesses were at the very least limited, if not irrelevant.

With every player, you take some bad with the good, but Roby had been mostly good in his first four years in Denver, which is why the team was confident enough to trade Aqib Talib to the Los Angeles Rams.

As it turns out, the Broncos would have been better off declining Roby’s option, letting him hit free agency last year, and just keeping Talib around.

Hindsight is always 20-20.

Now, the Broncos have to decide if they are going to entertain re-signing Roby after his worst season coverage-wise.

He’s still a young player at 26 going on 27, but production matters and he’s got one year of being a full-time starter and four years of working well as a third corner.

There are currently 20 cornerbacks in the NFL making an average of $9 million per season. Fellow Broncos corner Chris Harris Jr. is not among those 20 players (yet) so there’s no way the Broncos are going to pay Roby that much.

The going rate for a corner of Roby’s caliber has been in the range of $5-7 million, and my guess is some team will give him something on the higher end. If Roby approaches $7 million or more, there’s no way the Broncos are going to match it, and that’s probably okay. If they are willing to spend that much on a corner in free agency, they could look at free agents outside of Denver.

Projected value: $6.5-7.5 million/year, 3-4 year deal