Denver Broncos have one eye on 2021 with Von Miller fill-ins

The Denver Broncos are keeping one eye on 2021 with Von Miller’s fill-ins.

Why have the Denver Broncos not signed a bigger name pass rusher to fill in for Von Miller, who suffered a season-ending (minimum of three months) injury in the days of practice leading up to week one?

We laid out a bunch of names available that could make sense. The Denver Broncos even reached out to players like Clay Matthews and Cameron Wake, both near the top of the list of names who could come in but couldn’t come to any sort of financial agreement.

Instead, the team prioritized inexpensive depth, bringing in Isaiah Irving — a player who has experience working with Broncos head coach Vic Fangio — to the practice squad and veteran Anthony Chickillo, whose career has mostly been with the Pittsburgh Steelers outside of his pitstop with New Orleans this Summer.

Both Irving and Chickillo have sort of proven at this point to be good special teams players and decent depth at the outside linebacker position, but neither has been more than the number three or four edge in their respective situations.

Losing a player like Von Miller, a lot of fans are wondering why in the world John Elway wouldn’t use some of his nearly $25 million of available cap space to sign a veteran pass rusher for the season.

These veteran rushers are likely looking for nothing less than $5 million to play for the season, and there are ways to make that less of a cap hit in 2020, but the Broncos have a plan and they are sticking to it.

For the 2020 season, the NFL’s salary cap is set at just over $198 million. The NFL’s salary cap floor is set at $175 million in 2021 regardless of what happens with the league’s revenue loss from the absence of fans, at least early on.

That number is not going to be set in stone at $175 million, and could increase as well if things go better than expected in terms of the overall revenue loss for teams.

The Broncos have set themselves up very nicely for the 2021 salary cap regardless of what happens with the league’s overall revenue loss, and if nothing changed they would be able to have a working baseline salary cap of $200 million with their projected $25 million rolled over.

Considering that number could be higher and the Broncos only have $158.3 million in cap commitments for next season, the team is in a great situation salary cap-wise, and they don’t seem to want to compromise that for a one-year rental of a pass rusher.

Later in the season if those guys are available, they might re-visit depending on where the team is at competitively, but for the time being, the Broncos are clinging to their projected 2021 cap space, which is in the top 7 of the NFL.

The Broncos also have only $600,000 in dead money for the 2021 offseason, and the team’s recent moves have put them in great shape to add through free agency, keep their own guys, and extend key players as well.