Nick

Per Jason Fitzgerald of Over The Cap:

Quinn Meinerz signed a four year, $72 million extension with the Broncos on July 22, 2024. $45 million is guaranteed of which $24 million is fully guaranteed at signing. Meinerz received an $11.5 million signing bonus and his 2024 and 2025 salaries are guaranteed. If on the roster on the 5th day of the 2025 league year, his 2026 salary will be fully guaranteed. If on the roster on the 5th day of the 2027 league year, $6.14 million will become fully guaranteed. There are per game bonuses in the final three years of the contract. The contract also contains an additional void year for salary cap purposes. $8 million in additional incentives are available.

Some additional details:

• Surprisingly, Meinerz's APY comes out to be only $18 million, and not $20 million. It's surprising because initial reports to the contrary did not include weasel words like "up to" or "maximum" in that number.
• Less surprisingly, the reported guarantees of $45 million included vesting guarantees, with his full guarantees at signing coming in only at $24 million. However, the timing of his vesting guarantee on his 2026 salary being in 2025, combined with the structure of the contract as whole, makes it impractical to cut him before it vests. Something disastrous would have to happen in order to not pay out that salary, so I will describe his "likely guarantees" as $38.856 million.
• $10.275 million of his fully guaranteed money will be paid out in an option bonus in 2025. This accounts for the void year attached, in order to prorate the cap dollars from the option bonus maximally.
• The maximum earnings of the contract come from a set of rolling escalators to Meinerz's base salaries based upon being named a first team All-Pro. The more times he is named to this list--and especially if he is consecutively named beginning this season--the more escalators that will kick in. Since Meinerz has never been named as such, these officially are classified as Not Likely To Be Earned, and unofficially I think many of these escalators will be daunting for Meinerz to obtain.

More beyond the fold: to reference Meinerz's full contract table, visit his OTC page here.

Now that all major roster decisions in 2024 have been solidified, it's at this time of the year where I like to take a look beyond to see what types of decisions the Broncos have awaiting them after this season. As always, nothing can be set in stone until the 2024 NFL season is fully in the history books, but every team always has to be sketching out at least light plans as to what their roster could shape up to be in the longer term.

Now that draft and the bulk of free agency is over, it's time as always to evaluate my offseason road map, and see how well my preferred goals overlapped with the goals that the Broncos set out for themselves.

This season, I broke the road map into two pieces: a first part of moves I recommended in any scenario, and two second parts that were contingent on what the team decided to do with Russell Wilson. Much to my displeasure, they decided to cut him--thus, the second part without Wilson is binding in this evaluation.

Per Tom Pelissero, Courtland Sutton's desire to get his contract changed resulted in him not reporting for voluntary workouts on Monday.

On the one hand, I can understand Sutton's desire for a new contract. When he signed his current extension in 2021, it was very much seen as a team friendly contract. And at only $15M APY and only $13.6 million in cash due for 2024, that view has held up: the APY ranks only 20th, and the cash due in 2024 only ranks 24th.

But on the other hand, how has Sutton's production held up compared to his peers in wide receiver pay? Let's take a look at that in the table below, which adjusts 2023 receptions, yards, and touchdowns if every player who is due at least $13 million in 2024 had played all 17 games:

The Broncos took a major change at safety: they cut Justin Simmons, re-signed PJ Locke, and brought in Brandon Jones from the Dolphins. Here's some analysis of the new contracts the Broncos have on the books.

Yesterday, I shared one fork of the road map that involves keeping Russell Wilson on the roster, which is my preference. But I am also well aware of the possibility that this will not happen. Here's a look at what I'd best see the other fork looking like, if Wilson is not on the roster.

After laying out core moves the Broncos should make no matter what for the 2024 season, there's a fork in the road. That fork is a critical one: whether or not the Broncos decide to keep Russell Wilson on the roster.

I'll lay my cards out on the table and make my opinion clear: the Broncos should indeed keep Russell Wilson.

The performance of the 2023 Broncos has to be described as a disappointment that did not meet expectations. It was a team that should have made the playoffs, but had a few too many inexcusable losses. Improvements must be made to end what is a disgraceful eight year drought from the postseason.

As always, roster changes will be part of achieving that improvement. For this offseason, however, I'll be forking off a couple of different paths for this road map that will come in subsequent articles. This first part will chronicle several goals that I feel should be accomplished no matter what to start off the path.

Yesterday, the Broncos decided to play Jarrett Stidham for their final two games of the regular season. It was easy to see from as soon as the news started to break that Russell Wilson's $37 million injury guarantee for his 2025 salary would be at the heart of this decision, and that indeed came from more details via Jordan Schultz, confirmed by Troy Renck and Dianna Russini. Where does that leave the Broncos and Wilson both now, and toward the upcoming season?

Garett Bolles and Justin Simmons are two players on veteran contracts that are not expiring but have only one season remaining. Both players have also continued to play at the high levels they have sustained since signing their veteran contracts. Both players have played integral leadership roles for the Broncos on their respective sides of the football. And both players are set to have high salaries in 2024 ($14 million for Bolles, $14.4 million for Simmons) that would be useful to prorate some of their associated cap dollars into the future.

All of these goals could be attained by securing a pair of short term extensions that keep them in the fold at least one season longer than they are under contract for now.