Broncos are 1/32nd of NFL, have 1/14th of the league’s cap space

Douglas Lee Feb 13, 2012 2:38 PM

Plenty of (cap) room to improve
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The Houston Texans and San Diego Chargers didn’t have enough remaining room to push money over into 2012, so Houston has $3.3 million of cap space and San Diego has $9.2 million. The Kansas City Chiefs have $62.995 million after budgeting $24.014 million from the 2011 season. The 2011 playoff teams in good shape are the Denver Broncos ($50.735 million of cap room), San Francisco 49ers ($39.33 million), Atlanta Falcons ($30.6 million) and New England Patriots ($20 million). To get to the $50 million mark, the Broncos carried over $26 million of unused cap.

Four teams still have to get under the salary cap by March 13. They are the Pittsburgh Steelers, who have redone three contracts to be $11.7 million over, the Oakland Raiders ($11 million over), the Carolina Panthers ($9.6 million over) and the New York Giants ($7.3 million over).

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Tune, I'm pretty sure that the salary floor doesn't kick in until after this coming season. So unfortunately, that rule won't be in effect to force Bowlen's hand.
Posted by Royalwithcheese on 2012-02-13 23:45:23 I try not to forget that there are several players on IR who are under contract and will be available next year. Some should be willing to fill significant roles. In my mind, they're like free FAs. For instance, I suspect that at least four of the following might add significantly to much needed depth: Dell, Fanin, Kuper, Moreno, Thompson, Vaughn, Vickerson and Warren. As a result, RB, DT and CB should get some needed depth.

In addition, some 2nd and 3rd yr players should start to show why they were drafted in the first place. AT WR Royal, Decker and Thomas are 25 or younger, and Willis is slightly older. At TE Thomas and Green are 23, Rosario and Fells slightly older. On the OL Clady, Clark, Beadles, Walton, Franklin and Hills are 25 or younger, with Ramirez slightly older. Only Hochstein is an aged veteran.
At LB Miller, Mohamed, Irving, Woodyard, and Mays are all 26 or younger, I think. At DL Ayers, Unrein and Thomas are at 25 or younger, and Dumervil, Harvey, McBEan, Bunkley and Hunter are only slightly older. At DB Harris, Carter, Moore, Bruton and Bush are all 24 or younger.
Our QBs are 24 (Tebow and Weber) and 26 (Quinn).

Some of the "urgent needs" at DT, MLB and DB might already be on the roster if healthy or developing - i.e. Fanin, Moreno, Warren, Vickerson (depending on weidght issue), Irving, SQ Thompson, Vaughn, Harris, Carter, Moore, etc.

I see BPA as the operating strategy to upgrade or provide depth across the board. The exception to that may be at QB, since at this point i's difficult to determine if any of the three currently on the roster fill the ideal roles of franchise, veteran backup, and developing replacement.

And, for me, when BPA rules, I look first to the trenches.

Posted by ivanthenotsobad on 2012-02-13 18:09:54 The amount of cash spent on salary could be either higher or lower than the cap in any given year, depending on how agressive the team is in pursuing free agents and how they structure their deals. for example, You can give a guy a huge signing bonus today and then a relatively low annual salary for this season, and a relatively long overall term. that huge signing bonus is cash out of your pocket right now, so it counts towards the cash budget, but it gets prorated over the course of the contract as far as the cap is concerned, so it doesn't have as much impact on your cap number, at least not for this year. It'll have an impact in future years as well (and deals like that generally have salary figures that go up over the course of the contract), but the thinking is that the cap will go up in future years, so this sort of big bonus, back-loaded salary deal essentially allows you to spend the cap number for a couple years from now during the current season. Denver used to do this quite a bit, as do other teams (such as Washington), but lately we have been much more smart / frugal / cheap (depending on your perspective) with our contract.

as to your second point, I think that 95-98% requirement plays a big part as well, because the unused cap space from last year is going to have to be spent here pretty quickly. That, and the front office has done a pretty good job of getting out of a lot of bad contracts in recent years. If I had to guess, I'd say the strategy has been to save that money in the last couple of years while the roster was getting blown up anyway, draft and develop a core of talented young players, and then spend that money to sign them up for the long term once the FO / coaches have seen enough to decide who to prioritize. At least that's the idea, in practice it's a bit harder. but if they pull it off, we could be in a really nice spot in a couple of years.
Posted by Hercules_Rockefeller on 2012-02-13 18:07:38 And I agree Alex that Gaither would be the only guy I take a look at but with his injury history I worry about him a little. It would come down to the price. If we could get him on a decent deal I would be open to it but I get the feeling that him being the only solid tackle someone will overpay for him. I just hope it's not us.
Posted by rich on 2012-02-13 18:02:54 Gets me all warm and fuzzy inside Doc.
Posted by rich on 2012-02-13 17:57:55 agreed about the cap space.

As for the RT issue, no available FA is a sure thing, but how about Jared Gaither? seems to be a pretty low-cost/high-reward signing.
Posted by AlexCrean on 2012-02-13 16:31:20 Over the cap and with no draft picks, Rich. don't you get a little glow from that?
Posted by Doc Bear on 2012-02-13 16:14:06 TJ -- wait till he tries to umm... enunciate it, umm.. yeah.
Posted by Todd Jewell on 2012-02-13 16:07:07 I think those who are getting their hopes up for the Broncos landing the big names in free agency need to temper their expectations. It's pretty clear the Broncos intend to build through the draft and use free agency to fill holes as needed. Certainly, every Bronco fan has the right to be excited about what the Broncos did in 2011, in getting to the playoffs and winning in the first round, but don't take that to mean that all it takes is just a few players and the Broncos are Super Bowl bound.

I suspect the Broncos will take care of their own players first -- those they want to keep, that is. There are some players I can see taking less money to stay, but others may want to be paid quite a bit and those are the ones to allow to walk -- or at the very least, let them test the market and some will come back once they find they won't command as much money as they think they will.

Denver definitely needs to use the franchise tag on Matt Prater if he doesn't re-sign an extension, though, and the Broncos won't be putting up a lot by using the tag on him (about $2.7 million, which is what Josh Brown and Adan Vinatieri will make in 2012).
Posted by Bob on 2012-02-13 16:06:02 Ohio,

I'm just happy Xanders can spell "cap."
Posted by TJ Johnson on 2012-02-13 16:03:40 It's one thing to avoid signing high profile free agents. That's not usually a good strategy to begin with. I'll be more disturbed if they start letting proven productive players walk to help the bottom line even if the have the cap space to pay them.
Posted by ohiobronco on 2012-02-13 15:45:03 first and foremost take care of the in house guys. Re-sign Bunkley, Colquitt, Prater to good deals. And try and get Marcus Thomas and Woodyard back as well. I'd like to see a veteran safety brought in if Dawkins retires and also I'd like a really good veteran tackle to push Franklin to guard, unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any good or even decent tackles in free agency this year.

Love seeing Oakland over the cap space. They aren't going anywhere soon. More worried about the chefs. I'd hate it if they could re-sign key guys like Carr and Bowe.

Posted by rich on 2012-02-13 15:38:09 I don't know much about the relationship between cash and cap, but Xanders has made the point a couple of times that they go by a cash budget, not a cap budget.

Is it as simple as saying that their cash budget is *always* lower than their cap budget? Or is it more complicated? Like is it possible that in some years, the cash expenditures will be higher than their cap expenditures?

Being a homer, I want to believe that last season they did some awesome mad scientist moves to get out from a ton of dead weight, which will free them up to spend a lot these next few years.

Then, I just remembered that starting this year (unlike last year), all teams are required to utilize 95%-98% or something of their cap space. So maybe last year Bowlen was just saving money to fill up his coffers again. This last year had to have helped with that a lot, given the win streak and the home playoff appearance.
Posted by tunesmith on 2012-02-13 15:29:05 I know we don't want to totally build through FA, but a few extra pieces could take this team from a fringe playoff squad to a team that could do some damage in january!
Posted by AlexCrean on 2012-02-13 15:07:57 mario williams, carl nicks, jared gaither anyone?

maybe Reggie Wayne and a DB or two as well?
Posted by AlexCrean on 2012-02-13 15:06:59 hopefully
Posted by ohiobronco on 2012-02-13 15:03:59 but will we use it...
Posted by Todd Jewell on 2012-02-13 14:59:13

Broncos are 1/32nd of NFL, have 1/14th of the league’s cap space

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