The Denver Broncos might soon be faced with a brutal but inevitable decision along their defensive line.
The Broncos have the best and perhaps now deepest defensive line in the NFL. Vance Joseph's unit led in the NFL with 63 sacks in the 2024 NFL Season, nine more than any other team. Well, the Broncos have begun work along the DL, extending DJ Jones and Jonathon Cooper.
However, all of Zach Allen, Nik Bonitto, John Franklin-Myers, and even Malcolm Roach are set to see their contract expire following the 2025 NFL Season, and as you can see, the Broncos are going to be faced with a brutal but perhaps inevitable decision with this unit...
The Broncos are going to be faced with huge decisions here
Of the four players listed above, it is, unfortunately, close to impossible that the Broncos will be able to retain all four beyond the 2025 NFL Season. No NFL team, not even the Philadelphia Eagles, can pay everyone. The salary cap can be manipulated in a big way, but it's still a salary cap - there is a spending limit, and it's also not a good roster-building strategy to overload a certain position group with contracts.
The Broncos honestly have a good problem here to an extent, as they have several players who are deserving of deals - this should tell us, as fans, that the front office has a sharp eye for talent in the trenches, which is a major plus.
But Denver may only be willing to pay two of those four players between now and the end of the 2025 NFL Season. The logical choices here would be to pay Zach Allen and Nik Bonitto, but both players are going to cost well over $20 million per year. Would that be too much?
Denver might look at this as not being doable, so perhaps they turn their attention to Nik Bonitto and John Franklin-Myers instead? As you can see, there is going to be a huge, brutal, and inevitable decision here for this front office to make. Let's hope they make the correct one.