Just about one month after Super Bowl LVIII, the NFL free-agent signing period will begin and teams around the league will be racing to make the biggest moves that they can in order to improve their rosters.
The Denver Broncos will be no exception, but the team currently has a bit of a salary cap issue and needs to clear some space or signings are going to be tough to make. The salary cap can be a tricky thing to deal with, but there are always moves that can be made to navigate through it and come up with some more money to spend.
Spotrac offers several tools to help football fans understand how the cap works and have an idea of how much money their team has to spend. Here, the website even offers some moves that the Broncos can make in order to free up some salary cap space.
Keeping those things in mind, here are the five best ways the Broncos can take their salary cap (currently projected to be at -$23.9 million) and turn it back into the positive, allowing them to make some moves this offseason.
Release Tim Patrick
Move would free up $9.5 million in cap space
Though Tim Patrick is a popular player within the fanbase, this is an easy decision. He hasn't played a single down for two full seasons due to injuries and he's set to make too much money in 2024.
It will be tough for the team to release Patrick because when he has been on the field, he's been a reliable target in the passing game. But the team can't justify his $15.5 million cap number this coming season when he hasn't played in a game since 2021.
If the Broncos release Patrick and he is unable to find another team willing to give him the kind of deal he is looking for, he could always come back to Denver on a new deal, one that is more salary-cap friendly.
Process full base salary conversion for Mike McGlinchey
Move would free up $11.1 million in cap space
The Broncos signed right tackle Mike McGlinchey to a massive deal in free agency last offseason and he failed to play up to anywhere close to the level that most likely expected. He held his own in the run game but was quite average as a pass-blocker and brought forth too many penalties.
In other words, he wasn't much better than the players the team used at right tackle in 2022 and as a result, was not worth the money the team spent on him.
The Broncos don't have a lot of great options with him, but one thing they can do is convert his base salary into a prorated signing bonus. You see teams do this frequently in today's league and the entire reason for it is to create temporary salary cap space.
The Broncos could not only do this with McGlinchey but also with the other offensive lineman they signed in free agency last year, Ben Powers. If the team converted the base salaries of both of those players into signing bonuses, it would save a total of $19.8 million toward the cap.
Release D.J. Jones
Move would free up $10 million in cap space
The Broncos signed defensive tackle D.J. Jones to a three-year, $30 million deal in 2022. In two seasons with the team, he has been far from terrible, but he also would not be a difficult player to replace.
When you can create a double-digit figure in cap space for a marginal player, that is something you pretty much have to do when you are hurting for that cap space.
Make a decision on one of the top two wide receivers on the roster
Either Jerry Jeudy or Courtland Sutton needs to be playing for a new team in 2024 after the Broncos decide to move one of them. Would it be nice to keep both? In a perfect world, sure. But they are two of the most tradeable assets the team currently has.
We have discussed trade scenarios involving Jeudy at length and for me, there is no doubt that he needs to be somewhere else. But playing on a fifth-year option that will pay him nearly $13 million in 2024, there might not be a long line of teams willing to make a deal.
That might make Sutton the more likely candidate. After finding the end zone 10 times this past season, Sutton might be able to net the Broncos a better return than Jeudy in a potential trade.
The Broncos could also convert Sutton's base salary into a signing bonus as proposed with McGlinchey and/or Powers and that would free up $9.5 million in cap space. I would prefer to see the Broncos keep Sutton and find a trade partner for Jeudy, even if the return is small.
Potential cap-relief scenario
Keeping all of this in mind, let's take a hypothetical look at what some of these moves could look like if they were all made.
Release Tim Patrick
Convert salaries of Mike McGlinchey AND Ben Powers
Release D.J. Jones
Trade Jerry Jeudy
Convert salary of Courtland Sutton
Total Salary Cap Savings= $61.7 million
Updated Salary Cap space= $37.8 million
The Broncos could absolutely work with this. The hardest part of that scenario would likely be trading Jeudy and getting a team to take on his salary, but for those who talk of gloom and doom when it comes to the Broncos in free agency this offseason and basically being handcuffed by the cap, there are moves the team can make to alleviate that.