ENGLEWOOD, Colo. When new Denver Broncos general manager George Paton pulls into his parking space each day, it s for a team that has missed the playoffs in each of the past five seasons.
But the Broncos have enough salary cap room to dive into free agency currently north of $40 million with room to make more. They also have the No. 9 pick in the 2021 NFL draft and four picks among the first 109 with nine selections overall.
In short, they can get some things done even in a year when the salary cap has gone down in the wake of the pandemic. The cap is expected to be somewhere between $185 million and $189 million per team.
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. A long, long time ago in a football galaxy not so far away, coach Mike Shanahan had some things to say about free agency and the Denver Broncos. Everybody says we re in on everybody. Same thing every year. Oh and the Broncos are in discussions type thing. Sometimes we are, but most of the time we weren t, but if you re an agent and your guy is in the market, just say the Broncos are interested.
It was 2006 and, truth be told, Shanahan was quite often interested, but what goes around has certainly come around as the Broncos are one of the league s designated quarterback needy franchises that didn t play in this postseason. The franchise has seemingly launched 1,000 photoshops of a rotating group of veteran quarterbacks believed to be on the move this offseason to see how they would look in orange and blue.
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. While Drew Lock s future at quarterback and Von Miller s future at linebacker are already discussion in full swirl early in this Denver Broncos offseason, a very real down-to-down football problem is staring the team in the face as well.
The Broncos are wafer-thin at cornerback and face the possibility of remaking an entire secondary if some big checks don t get written. Those are things [general manager] George [Paton] will have to look at, said Broncos president of football operations John Elway.
Cornerback A.J. Bouye, who missed the final four games of this season and will miss the first two games of 2021 due to a violation of the league s policy on performance-enhancing drugs, faces an uncertain future and could potentially be released. Cornerback Bryce Callahan, who was playing some of the best football in his career before he injured his foot this season, has now missed 22 games over the past two seasons with injuries.
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. For the first time in four decades, the person with final say on football decisions for the Denver Broncos did not have the team s name anywhere on his football résumé when he arrived.
When George Paton was formally introduced Tuesday as the newly minted general manager of the Broncos complete with the requisite orange tie he immediately became the proverbial fresh set of eyes to fix a five-year playoff drought, a decided lack of touchdowns on offense and a spinning turnstile at quarterback. The fact that he s had a lot of opportunities to go other places I think you look at a man like that, and you say, You know what, he s not going to jump at any job; he wants to find the right job, president of football operations John Elway said. I think that when you show the patience that George showed, we re very fortunate that he liked our situation. . I think we have a bright, bright future with George and his history and evaluation as well as his connection