Examining the Broncos’ salary-cap situation and how much they have to spend

DENVER — On the surface, the Denver Broncos aren’t swimming in salary cap space in 2019.

Entering the offseason — based on the $188.2 million salary cap — Denver’s projected to have roughly $25.6 million in cap space, nearly $10.5 million less than the league average.

Yes, that includes the savings from the team moving on from Darian Stewart and not picking up Brandon Marshall’s contract option, making him a free agent. It also includes the $18.5 million that Denver will give to new QB Joe Flacco this season.

Additionally, Denver will carry $14.4 million in dead cap, the most in the league, in large part due to Marshall ($4 million), Demaryius Thomas ($3.5 million), Stewart ($2.8), Menelik Watson ($1.33 million) and Paxton Lynch ($1.27 million). This number is also already factored into the current salary cap space.

With eight draft picks, including the No. 10 overall pick, Denver’s draft class is projected to cost them $8.3 million against the cap in 2019, which they’ll also have to budget for.

The Broncos do benefit by rolling over $8 million in unused cap space from 2018.

Without getting too far into the nitty-gritty, in the end, John Elway & Co. will have roughly $17.2 million to spend once free agency, and the new league year, begins on Mar. 13.

In today’s NFL, that amount of money might buy a team a bottom-tier starting quarterback, but that would be it.

It would be just enough to afford Antonio Brown, but that would be it.

It would buy a team a top-tier pass rusher — not Von Miller! — but that would be it.

Or, it could land a team about 17 average punters, and, yes, that would be it.

But, if the Broncos want to create more cap space to have more money to spend to acquire more players on the open market, they’ll have plenty of opportunities to do so.

In fact, with just a few moves, Elway will be able to breathe with a workable amount of cap space.

And, with a few additional moves to that, Elway and the Broncos can be swimming in more cap space than they will know what to do with — just kidding, they’ll have plenty of ways to spend it.

Outside of Von Miller’s whopping $25.1 million cap hit, by far Denver’s largest cap hit on the year, the Broncos could financially part ways with five of their next six highest-paid players in terms of cap hit and save money on each and every one of them.

Those players are as follows, from largest 2019 cap hit to smallest: Case Keenum, Joe Flacco, Emmanuel Sanders, Derek Wolfe, and Chris Harris Jr.

Although Denver could cut Flacco and have zero dead cap — saving them $18.5 million against the cap — the rest of this article will assume that will not happen since it’s completely improbable the Broncos move on from him by the time free agency wraps up.

If Denver moved on from every single one of those veteran players, outside of Flacco, they would open up an additional $37.7 million in cap space. That would give Elway over $54.9 million to spend once free agency begins.

Additionally, the Broncos could move on from Todd Davis and Brandon McManus and save another $4.5 million, putting Elway’s offseason budget at nearly $60 million.

Moving on from those six players, along with the $8.5 million for the draft class, would give Denver the eighth-most cap space in the NFL, only trailing the Raiders ($69.79 million) in the AFC West, despite carrying an additional $20.4 million in dead cap.

Of course, it is highly unlikely that all six of these players will be cut, specifically Chris Harris Jr. But, many of the other players have been mentioned as possibilities of being cap casualties — whether it’s Sanders due to injury or Wolfe for his potential savings.

Likely, it’s somewhere in the middle.

If it is right in the middle, for perspective’s sake, Elway and the Broncos would have roughly $38.3 million in spendable cap entering the new league year. That, along with the $8.5 million for the draft class, would give Denver the 10th-most cap space in the league.

With that type of cash, Elway will be able to contend in the world of free agency — an area he has historically been strong in.

But don’t forget, these numbers don’t include Denver’s unrestricted free agents, restricted free agents or exclusive rights free agents.

Throw the RFAs and ERFAs in the equation, and knock a couple million off Elway’s free agent spending spree allocation. Toss in re-signing a few of Denver’s unrestricted free agents — say Jeff Heuerman, Billy Turner and Jared Veldheer — and knock at least an additional $10 million off the budget to spend on free agency.

It’s amazing how quickly millions disappear in today’s NFL.

Regardless of how it’s done, Elway has the opportunity to make himself a significant player in the free agency game, but it won’t come without many tough decisions.