It's that time of year again -- NFL Free Agency. Typically, teams that win in March (meaning, spending the most money) are not the teams that win the following February, but that's not always the case. NFL Free Agency has proven itself to be an absolutely critical piece of team building for the Denver Broncos' best teams in franchise history. You look back at the acquisition of Neil Smith in the late 90s and how much he helped that team.
How about Jake Plummer in the 2003 offseason?
Certainly, nobody can forget the Denver Broncos making arguably the greatest free agent signing of all-time when they brought in Peyton Manning in March 2012. Then came the vaunted free agency class of 2014 which included DeMarcus Ware, Aqib Talib, Emmanuel Sanders, and TJ Ward.
Free agency has mostly been good to the Denver Broncos, but not every move has been a home run. In fact, the Denver Broncos have their share of really bad ones. Let's take a painful trip down memory lane at the 15 worst free agent pickups in Denver Broncos history.
15 worst free agent signings in Denver Broncos history
15. Randy Gregory, EDGE (2022)
It's very early to be calling Randy Gregory one of the worst free agent signings in Denver Broncos history, but he's going to have to have a monstrous year in 2023 to avoid this particular label. Coming over from the Dallas Cowboys, Gregory had a long history of injury issues and suspensions that had Broncos fans feeling a little uneasy about the move, to say the least.
The fact that the Broncos passed on a reunion with Von Miller to make this signing? Even worse. The fact that they passed on Chandler Jones and maybe even Haason Reddick to make this signing? Worse yet. The fact that this signing ultimately led to the team trading away Bradley Chubb, a younger player and frankly more complete player at the position?
This was just a bad signing all-around, especially when you think about the fact that Gregory only played in six games for the Broncos. As of right now, considering what the Broncos passed up on to sign him, the Randy Gregory signing is looking like it could make history.
14. Eddie Kennison, WR (2001)
The Denver Broncos signed wide receiver Eddie Kennison in the 2001 offseason as they were attempting to make their way back to prominence following their win over the Falcons in the Super Bowl in the 1998-99 season.
Obviously at this point, John Elway had retired. Brian Griese was running the show. The Broncos still had Ed McCaffrey and Rod Smith at the receiver position but they signed Kennison to a two-year deal worth $1.5 million with a $500,000 guarantee.
Early in the season, Ed McCaffrey was dealing with an injury that caused Kennison to be thrust into the starting lineup with Rod Smith, but the potential the Broncos had seen in him the first four years of his NFL career failed to show itself in orange and blue. He wasn't playing well at all, and then left the team completely, saying he'd lost his love for the game. It was later revealed that there were things going on in Kennison's personal and family life that may have led to his asking for a release, but the Broncos were left hanging big time on this one.
What makes this free agent signing so bad is not just that Kennison left the team abruptly as they were trying to regain prominence, but the fact that he almost immediately signed with the Kansas City Chiefs -- one of the Broncos' top rivals -- and was productive for them right away. He signed in Kansas City on a two-year deal worth $4.5 million in total money with more than $3 million guaranteed.
As time would pass, Kennison would prove himself to be an outstanding and consistent receiver. He had five very productive seasons as a member of the Chiefs from 2002-06, averaging nearly 1,000 yards per year.
13. Niko Koutouvides, LB (2008)
The 2008 offseason would prove to be a pretty critical one in Denver Broncos history as it would be the last of the Mike Shanahan era.
Shanahan had coached the team to its first two Super Bowl wins ever. He had brought the franchise into prominence and etched their name in NFL immortality, and he almost did it again with Jake Plummer leading the team at quarterback.
After benching Plummer in the 2006 season, Shanahan pivoted to Jay Cutler and Cutler was entering his second full season as the starter in 2008. It was a crucial juncture for the Broncos because owner Pat Bowlen was ready for his team to be back in title contention.
One of the bigger moves Shanahan made in that 2008 offseason was signing free agent linebacker Niko Koutouvides, a name you may not recognize. Koutouvides signed a three-year deal worth $7.5 million and it was thought, at the time, that he would take the next step from being a special teams ace in Seattle to perhaps becoming a full-time starter with the Broncos at the linebacker position.
He ended up playing one season with the Broncos, 14 games, and racking up just 10 total tackles.
12. Simeon Rice, DE (2007)
In the mid-to-late 90s and early 2000s, few defensive ends were as productive as Simeon Rice. Rice was the 1996 defensive rookie of the year in the NFL. He made it to three Pro Bowls from 1996-2005, was an All-Pro, and racked up 119 total sacks and 24 forced fumbles.
As a member of the Arizona Cardinals and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Simeon Rice was the man. He helped the Bucs win a Super Bowl over the Raiders in the 2002 NFL season. Even as he entered into his early 30s as a player, he was a strip-sack machine.
When the Buccaneers cut him due to a failed physical after the 2006 season, Rice became a free agent and he was really on brand for the way Mike Shanahan liked to build his defenses at the time. Shanahan was seemingly all about reclamation projects for a season, or at least seeing what kind of juice he could squeeze out of big-name players, and so of course the Broncos signed Rice to a one-year, $3 million deal in the 2007 offseason.
As it turns out, the former All-Pro and Pro Bowl selection was simply out of production. His time had come, but the Broncos didn't realize it before making their investment. He played just six games as a Bronco, recording seven total tackles and 0 sacks. The Broncos let him go in the season and he was picked up briefly by the Indianapolis Colts as well.
11. Jeff Driskel, QB (2020)
Hindsight is always 20-20, but sometimes even in the moment, you scratch your head at moves that get made and wonder what your favorite team is thinking and doing.
Everyone was operating in a completely new world in the 2020 offseason, to be fair. The pandemic had greatly impacted the way teams had to operate, and nobody could have known exactly what the year would bring or what the future would hold, specifically for Broncos QB Drew Lock.
Lock was coming off of a promising finish to the 2019 season and just about everyone in Broncos Country was hopeful that they may have discovered the new QB of the future. The 2020 offseason was almost completely tailored to making life better for Lock, including the fact that the Broncos went out and spent decent money on a quarterback who posed absolutely no threat to him in Jeff Driskel.
Driskel was with the Bengals in 2019 where they had reportedly experimented with him as a wide receiver. Then the Broncos signed him to a two-year deal worth $5 million to play QB the next offseason.
The Broncos would end up needing Driskel to play in 2020 in three games, and the results were predictably bad. He completed less than 55 percent of his passes. Actually, the Broncos would need Driskel to play in four games, but unfortunately, he was one of an entire room of QBs that violated COVID protocol, eliminating him as a possibility to play vs. the Saints late in the 2020 season.
That resulted in the infamous Kendall Hinton game.
The Broncos didn't bring Driskel back in 2021.
10. Kyle Fuller, CB (2021)
The Denver Broncos were poised to do everything they could to give Vic Fangio a shot at winning in the 2021 season. New general manager George Paton brought in a veteran QB to unseat Drew Lock in Teddy Bridgewater, and he also invested heavily in the secondary so Fangio's defense could hopefully get the better of the likes ot Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.
One of the biggest moves the Broncos made in the 2021 offseason was signing cornerback Kyle Fuller to a one-year deal worth $9.5 million. Fuller had been a Pro Bowl player under Vic Fangio when the two were together in Chicago, so when the Bears made Fuller a salary cap casualty, the fit in Denver seemed to be a no-brainer.
The Broncos had assembled a pretty stellar secondary on the whole, at least when you looked at the group on paper. They had Fuller in the mix along with his former Bears teammate Bryce Callahan and new free agent pickup Ronald Darby. Then the team went and drafted Pat Surtain II out of Alabama. That secondary looked legendary on paper, but things don't always go the way you hope.
Fuller was expected to be the steadiest player of the bunch, at least early on, and he ended up being the worst. He was benched by Fangio in 2021 and ended up playing a bit of nickel corner later on in the season. The Broncos couldn't even trade Fuller to cornerback-needy teams at the deadline.
Fuller was at least available for 2021, playing in 16 games for the team, but he was on the wrong end of so many big plays for the opposing offense that year.
9. Dale Carter, CB (1999)
Fresh off of back-to-back Super Bowl wins, Mike Shanahan and the Denver Broncos were basically bulletproof and rightfully awarded some leeway when it comes to the moves they made to build the roster. The Broncos had a need at cornerback in the 1999 offseason, fresh off of beating the Falcons, and they spent big to acquire former NFL defensive rookie of the year Dale Carter.
Carter played the first seven years of his NFL career with the Kansas City Chiefs, so the Broncos signing him to a four-year deal worth almost $23 million to make him the highest paid corner in the game was undoubtedly sweet for multiple reasons, at the time.
Unfortunately for the Denver Broncos, this move didn't work out at all.
Carter had 72 tackles in 1999 along with two interceptions and 12 passes defensed, but those numbers couldn't hide that Carter was not playing at the All-Pro level he'd once shown with the Chiefs. He was then suspended for the entire 2000 season because he violated the NFL's substance abuse policy, and the Broncos cut him in 2001.
Because he came over from Kansas City, because he was an All-Pro, because he signed what was -- at the time -- the richest deal for a cornerback in league history, this deal will undoubtedly always go down as one of the top-10 worst NFL free agency moves the Broncos have made.
8. Jarvis Green, DL (2010)
Ah, the Josh McDaniels era. Full of great memories, am I right?
Josh McDaniels was -- and clearly still is -- such a power trip. The guy is hilarious. In 2009, when he was initially hired by the Denver Broncos, McDaniels treated his first opportunity to run an NFL franchise as though he were running it on the Madden video game instead of a real-life team. He had zero understanding of what managing an NFL team meant, even though he clearly thought he knew everything because he worked for Bill Belichick.
McDaniels set a horrendous precedent for Belichick disciples when it comes to running a team, and unfortunately, that really hasn't changed much for Belichick disciples in the years since 2009.
In 2010, after McDaniels had almost completely dismantled the roster that Mike Shanahan had left in place, he did something he had already done a number of times before which is sign a former Patriots player to bring that Patriot way to the Mile High City.
He signed defensive lineman Jarvis Green to a four-year deal worth $20 million, no chump change for a player who had been clearly declining since the 2007 season concluded.
Jarvis Green signed that four-year deal with the Broncos in March, and McDaniels cut him in September. I guess, at the very least, you've got to give him credit for understanding his mistake and doing something about it. Now, about the wasted free agency resources...
7. Donald Stephenson, OT (2016)
Outside of signing Peyton Manning, I think we can all agree that John Elway struggled to identify good fits at a couple of different positions on his rosters, specifically: Quarterback and right tackle.
For a long time, the right tackle position has been more of a revolving door for the Broncos than the quarterback spot. This team has struggled to effectively replace Orlando Franklin since he left for the Chargers in 2015. In hindsight, perhaps keeping Franklin around for another couple of years would have been worth the investment for John Elway.
The Broncos were desperate for offensive tackle help throughout the 2015 season. They ended up winning the Super Bowl with Ryan Harris and Michael Schofield at the tackle positions. With all due respect to those men, there's a reason why the Broncos wre so heavily rumored to be in on a potential trade for Joe Thomas during the 2015 season.
The offensive line needed work, and the Broncos knew that in the 2016 offseason. Instead of taking someone proven, the Broncos went after Donald Stephenson of the Chiefs in free agency, a player who started just 21 games in four seasons with Kansas City as a swing player for their line.
The Broncos signed him to a three-year deal worth $14 million, $10 million guaranteed to be their starting right tackle. The Broncos kept him around for two seasons but he was replaced in the starting lineup somewhat ironically by another guy on this list...
6. Ronald Leary, OG (2017)
The Denver Broncos were desperate -- once again -- for offensive line help in the 2017 offseason, and they let their investment show it. Although it wasn't exactly a frowned-upon move at the time, the decision to sign Ronald Leary to a big-money deal after the Dallas Cowboys let him walk was certainly questionable.
Leary was undrafted in 2012 due to a degenerative knee condition. Injuries cost him most of the 2015 season and some of the 2016 season before he hit free agency in 2017.
Free agency of 2017, where the Broncos brought him in on a four-year deal worth $36 million and $20 million guaranteed. Again, this move wasn't exactly frowned upon, although investing in the offensive line in free agency hadn't been overly kind to the Broncos in this stretch of time (which, frankly, is ongoing).
Leary started 11 games in 2017 before landing on IR with a back injury. He came back in the 2018 season but the team moved him over to the left guard position, not his natural position, but a position he'd played well in his final season with Dallas in 2016. He was the starting left guard for all of five games before suffering an Achilles injury in the sixth. He landed on IR yet again.
Leary came back in 2019 to start at right guard, and he did for 11 games before once again missing the final month of the season due to injury.
Signing injury prone players in free agency has consistently haunted the Denver Broncos.
5. Case Keenum, QB (2018)
Just on the surface, this is going to seem super harsh. Case Keenum is a good guy and a solid player, but we're looking at these moves from a variety of angles that landed them on such a list like this. Keenum isn't being included on the list because he was so bad for the Broncos, but this move needs to be understood in its full context.
In the 2018 offseason, the Denver Broncos were in prime position to make a move at the quarterback position. It was year two of the Vance Joseph era. Everyone was already upset enough about the team not hiring Kyle Shanahan in 2017, but at least in 2018 they had a shot at a QB. The Broncos had cap space. They had a top-five draft pick.
Not only did they have the assets, but the Broncos also had the chance to coach the likes of Baker Mayfield and Josh Allen at the 2018 Senior Bowl. Denver's coaching staff got to work with those guys every single day. They had a presence at every Pro Day. Although he wasn't the head coach of the team, Gary Kubiak was heavily involved in the process.
After going through the entire gambit of options, the Broncos decided to sign Case Keenum in 2018 free agency following the Minneapolis miracle. They signed Keenum to a two-year deal worth $36 million and convinced themselves to pass on trying to move up for Sam Darnold or even take Josh Allen or Josh Rosen, who were on the board still when the Broncos were on the clock at pick no. 5 overall.
In hindsight, it's easy to criticize passing on those guys but when you consider where the team was at, it's incredibly hard to justify not taking some kind of a shot on a QB, even Lamar Jackson who was pick no. 32 overall in that draft.
The Broncos were rumored to be interested in Kirk Cousins as well that offseason, but Cousins signed with the Vikings on an unprecedented fully guaranteed deal.
Interestingly enough, it may have simply been familiarity with Keenum that caused the Broncos to make the move they did in 2018. Keenum was initially brought into the NFL by the Houston Texans when Gary Kubiak was still on staff there. Vance Joseph was on that staff as well.
At any rate, Keenum didn't play well enough to warrant the Broncos bringing him back in 2019. They ate some of his contract and traded him to Washington for whatever they could in 2019. Bad process, bad signing, bad judgment.
4. Menelik Watson, OT (2017)
In the same offseason the Denver Broncos signed Ronald Leary to a four-year deal worth $36 million in total money, they also signed offensive tackle Menelik Watson to a three-year deal worth over $18 million and $11 million in guarantees.
Watson was a second-round pick in the 2013 NFL Draft out of Florida State and had all of the physical attributes you would look for at the position. Great frame, long arms, a basketball background...
The Broncos signed Watson to a really player-friendly deal just one year after doing almost the exact same deal with Donald Stephenson. Watson was expected to come in and start at right tackle, which he did, for all of seven games.
$11 million guaranteed for seven games. It's not bad work if you can find it.
Menelik Watson was just flat-out bad for the Denver Broncos at the position. It's nobody's fault except the pro scouting department. He landed on IR that season with a calf injury and then landed on IR again in 2018 with a pectoral injury.
Watson was considered by many Denver Broncos fans at the time to be the worst free agent signing the team had made in decades. He has become a cautiounary tale of what signing another team's backup to be your starter can do to set you back.
3. Travis Henry, RB (2007)
There was a time when any running back could join forces with Mike Shanahan and become a household name. This wasn't just a fluke thing that happened a couple of times, it was almost unanimously true that if you were a running back from the mid-90s on, you could go play for Mike Shanahan and run for 1,000 yards in your sleep.
Travis Henry was released by the Tennessee Titans after the two sides couldn't come together on a restructured contract, and the running back signed a five-year deal with the Broncos worth $22.5 million in total money with $12 million in guarantees.
Henry had run for over 1,000 yards before as a member of the Titans and Bills, and the Broncos obviously believed that he could be a centerpiece in their new-look offense with Jay Cutler under center.
Henry started off his Broncos career in impressive fashion, running for 128 or more yards in three of the team's first four games of the season. Then things started to go off the rails. Henry then faced a possible suspension in the middle of the season due to a positive marijuana test, but appealed and won. Still, the Broncos asked him to restructure his deal in 2008 and Henry did exactly that.
Even after vowing to do right by the Broncos, the team let him go in June of 2008 and head coach Mike Shanahan cited that Henry was not showing a willingness to do the "little things" which led to his release.
Henry would never play in the NFL again after that 2007 season, getting suspended in 2008 and then being sentenced to three years in prison in 2009 for financing a drug trafficking operation.
2. Daryl Gardener, DL (2003)
The Denver Broncos signed Daryl Gardener in the 2003 offseason to a seven-year deal worth $34.8 million and some will argue that he is the absolute worst signing in team history as a free agent.
Gardener was a first-round pick of the Miami Dolphins in the 1996 NFL Draft and ended up playing for them until 2001. He started to emerge in his late 20s as a true presence on the defensive line and signed a one-year deal with Washington in 2002 where he racked up 52 total tackles, 11 tackles for loss, and four sacks. Gardener parlayed that into his mega-deal with the Broncos in 2003, but unfortunately for all parties involved, his time in Denver was very short.
Gardener played in just five games as a member of the Denver Broncos. He had eight tackles, no sacks, and just two starts among those five games. He got suspended twice for conduct detrimental to the team. He got cut after the 2003 season and reached a settlement with the Broncos after they tried to get some of their bonus money back from him.
Understandably so.
Gardener became a competitive bodybuilder shortly after his NFL playing days.
Gardener is considered one of the top free agency busts in league history due to the way things went in Denver and unfortunately, things got even worse for him after his playing days. He was arrested in 2011 in a domestic violence incident in which he was alleged to have head-butted his girlfriend.
There's no hard news as to what happened after that arrest, which ended up being a back-and-forth of accusations, but looking at his Facebook profile, it looks like Gardener -- at least as of 2021 -- was leading a normal life as a resident of Orlando, Florida. As strange as it sounds, this post is being published on Gardener's birthday.
1. Ja'Wuan James, OT (2019)
When it comes to identifying the absolute worst free agent signing in Denver Broncos history, there can be only one. Ja'Wuan James, signed in the 2019 offseason, will be a tough one to top for years to come as one of the worst free agent signings not only in Denver Broncos history, but in all NFL history.
James felt like a gift from the football gods when he signed in 2019. The Broncos had long been struggling at the right tackle position -- as the rest of this article clearly points out -- and James was a relatively young former first-round pick hitting the open market.
The Broncos targeted him, and they landed him. James signed a four-year deal with the Broncos worth $52 million in total money, including $32 million in guarantees. To make a long story short, James would only end up "playing" in three games for the Broncos.
Three games. $52 million, $32 million guaranteed.
After trudging through three games in the 2019 season, surely James would come back in 2020 and have a bounce-back year. At that price, we were all but certain of it. Nope.
James ended up opting out of the 2020 NFL season completely due to the pandemic, which a number of players did. Because he opted out, James' contract tolled to the 2021 season, so the Broncos were not only out a right tackle, but his cap hits moved forward a year as the NFL decreased the salary cap due to the impact of the pandemic.
By the time the 2021 offseason rolled around, there was an ongoing CBA negotiation between the players and NFL. James had been working out at the Broncos facility in the 2021 offseason, getting ready to come back and hopefully start for the team, until it was recommended by the NFLPA that players not work out at team facilities until there was more clarity on the ongoing negotiations.
James took that advice to heart, left the team facility, and almost immediately ruptured his Achilles working out on his own. Because the injury occurred away from the team facility, the Broncos were able to get out of a lot of the money James was still owed, but it turned into a whole thing of James then being upset with the NFLPA and the Broncos, filing a grievance to get some of his guaranteed money back. His decision to work out away from the team facility ended up being a $15 million mistake.
The Broncos released James having "only" ultimately invested $17 million. Still, $17 million over three games in three years is wild. James signed a two-year deal after his 2021 injury with the Ravens, and came back in 2022 hoping to actually play again for the first time since 2019. He suffered another Achilles injury while with Baltimore, effectively ending his NFL career.