After the 2025 season, the Broncos will have multiple key players hitting free agency. Some will have considerable complexities to sort through to find a fair contract for player and team alike. But I feel that that won’t be the case for one player and his position: center Luke Wattenberg. He is the only future question on a Broncos offensive line that is otherwise under contract for multiple seasons. Thus, before the long holiday I thought it would be proper to briefly address an extension for him.
The center market is simple and stagnant
To illustrate how there isn’t a whole lot to say about this market, let’s just take a look at the six centers that have eight digit APYs:
| Player | Age | APY | Full Guarantees | Year 1 Cash Flow | Year 2 Cash Flow | Year 3 Cash Flow | Year 4 Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creed Humphrey | 26 | $18,000,000 | $35,000,000 | $21,500,000 | $36,000,000 | $54,000,000 | $72,000,000 |
| Cam Jurgens | 26 | $17,000,000 | $23,346,000 | $18,000,000 | $34,000,000 | $51,000,000 | $68,000,000 |
| Drew Dalman | 27 | $14,000,000 | $26,500,000 | $18,000,000 | $30,000,000 | $42,000,000 | — |
| Lloyd Cushenberry | 28 | $12,500,000 | $26,000,000 | $20,000,000 | $30,000,000 | $38,000,000 | $50,000,000 |
| Erik McCoy | 28 | $12,000,000 | $20,090,000 | $17,300,000 | $27,400,000 | $37,500,000 | $48,000,000 |
| Tyler Biadasz | 28 | $10,000,000 | $17,700,000 | $15,200,000 | $21,700,000 | $30,000,000 | — |
Everyone here is getting either a three year or four year contract, with at least 70% of their first two seasons fully guaranteed. Running cash flows are not drastically different from the APY of the entire contract.
Furthermore, unlike with guard, which has seen an increase in length and value of contracts (see Quinn Meinerz having the same APY as Humphrey but with only the 8th highest APY at his position), center has fallen behind its interior offensive line peers. For better for worse, it’s just not a position that teams are willing to invest high salary in, perhaps barely excepting the consensus top centers.
Where to place Wattenberg among these peers probably comes in an increasing gap between Jurgens and old friend Cushenberry that is now only occupied by Dalman since Frank Ragnow’s retirement. There’s not much of a need to build a complicated contract table in this case. One could envision a more team friendly contract being around $13.25M APY or so, and a more player friendly contract around $15.5M or so, with cash flows and full guarantees effectively making a firm two season commitment on the extension.
The question is whether it’ll actually happen.
Will the Broncos finally prioritize extending a center?
One has to go all the way back to the great Tom Nalen to find a center that the Broncos kept in the fold for beyond one contract. Since Nalen, the Broncos have cycled through multiple centers that have almost always been at least average starters worthy of the playing time they got–but none that got extended. This has been consistent from Josh McDaniels to John Elway to George Paton. It would be foolish to succumb to status quo bias and say that Wattenberg should be allowed to walk in free agency on the same basis.
Still, a couple factors could justify not extending Wattenberg. For one, he’ll turn 29 for the 2026 season. A typical contract that guarantees only the first two seasons would not be too aggravating of his age, but it is true that he’d be getting his second contract at an older age than others. For another, Alex Forsyth is right there behind him in the depth chart, and while his contract expires only one season after Wattenberg’s, he is a feasible successor to Wattenberg if the team knows something about his talent on the practice field that those outside the team don’t know.
2025 training camp may also provide more clues to the Broncos as they see where Wattenberg and Forsyth are in their development. That could help shape their views on whether they wish to offer Wattenberg an extension. While it would not surprise me if a deal was struck, my guess as of now is that the Broncos’ offers might not venture too far beyond the team friendly side. Perhaps Wattenberg would accept if he wants to, but it would not surprise me if we don’t see a deal because he didn’t–or if the Broncos never even offered.