The Denver Broncos' bold choice to cut Russell Wilson following the 2023 NFL Season forced them to eat $85 million in dead cap. How much do they have left? The move seemed widely unpopular, and when the Broncos turned to Bo Nix at pick 12 in the 2024 NFL Draft, they laughed even more.
Russell Wilson signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers last offseason, and all we heard was how good of a fit that was and how good Pittsburgh was going to be. Well, both the Broncos and Steelers went 10-7 in 2024 and lost in the Wild Card Round.
How much is left?
The huge advantage that the Broncos have is them having a long-term answer at QB and going about their season with house money. The Steelers' 2024 season was clearly considered a failure by the NFL landscape and by their fans.
The Steelers will have to decide on Russell Wilson and whether to bring him back, but with the Las Vegas Raiders hiring Pete Carroll, there is a scenario where Wilson heads back to the AFC West. In 2024, the Broncos began the process of taking on the NFL-record $85 million in dead cap from the fallout of the contract release.
Heading into 2025, according to Over The Cap, the Denver Broncos have $32,000,000 left with the dead cap amount. After the 2025 NFL Season, Wilson's contract will totally be off the books.
The Broncos ate $53 million in dead cap last season, which represented 62.35% of the total amount. The $32 million left represents 37.65% of the charge. Denver did this the right way and got the big amount out of the way first. They probably intentionally did that to line up with taking a rookie QB, because now heading into 2025, the Broncos will have a good bit of cap space open up.
They will be able to make a few notable signings in free agency and can also explore many other avenues to create cap space. Overall, the franchise handled the dead cap situation very well. The only other dead cap charge the Broncos will have in 2025 is from the contract of Greg Dulcich. Remember him?
The Russell Wilson trade totally blew up in their faces, but it's good that the Denver Broncos realized their mistake and got out of the situation in a reasonable way. Bo Nix, Sean Payton, and the new Broncos' ownership have really changed the course of this franchise.