2026 NFL cap \u00a0$\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 301,200,000<\/p>\n
Denver Bronco 2026 Salary % of 2026 cap<\/p>\n
1 Nik Bonito \u00a0 $\u00a0\u00a026,500,000 8.8%<\/p>\n
2 Zach Allen \u00a0 $\u00a0\u00a025,500,000 8.5%<\/p>\n
3 Patrick Surtain II $\u00a0\u00a024,000,000 8.0%<\/p>\n
4 Courtland Sutton \u00a0$\u00a0\u00a023,000,000 7.6%<\/p>\n
5 Garett Bolles \u00a0 $\u00a0 20,000,000 6.6%<\/p>\n
6 Quinn Meinerz $\u00a0\u00a018,000,000 6.0%<\/p>\n
7 Mike McGlinchey \u00a0$\u00a0\u00a017,500,000 5.8% <\/p>\n
8 Jonathan Cooper \u00a0$\u00a0 15,000,000 5.0% <\/p>\n
9 Talanoa Hufanga \u00a0$\u00a0\u00a0 13,000,000 4.3% <\/p>\n
10 D.J. Jones \u00a0 $\u00a0\u00a0 13,000,000 4.3% <\/p>\n
11 Ben Powers \u00a0 $\u00a0\u00a0 12,875,000 4.3% <\/p>\n
12 Luke Wattenberg \u00a0$\u00a012,000,000 4.0% <\/p>\n
13 Evan Engram \u00a0 $\u00a0\u00a011,500,000 3.8%<\/p>\n
Totals $ 231,875,000 77%<\/p>\n
The source for this information is Spotrac. The list shows the highest\u2011paid players on the Broncos roster. As you can see, 13 players account for 77% of the salary cap. This helps explain why the Broncos have not been very active in free agency\u2014they are paying their own players, and in many cases paying them very well (arguably overpaying for some, but all teams are forced to do this, mainly because players level of play can be unpredictable year to year). There just is not much room to sign expensive free agents when you have 40 other players to pay with less than $70 million payroll left. <\/p>\n
Let’s jump to future. Based on Nix\u2019s career projection, assuming no additional serious injuries, or a significant performance drop off, he is likely to earn $45\u201355 million per year in 2028\/2029, depending how contract is done after 4th year. At today\u2019s cap levels, that would represent approximately 15\u201318% of the NFL salary cap. (Even if the cap increases, Nix\u2019s salary will likely rise as well, so the percentage of the cap probably will not change much.)<\/p>\n
If you look at the current list, remove 2 to 4 top\u2011paid players, I know the specific players will not be the same, some may be traded, released, or have their contracts restructured, but when Nix signs his deal, the team will effectively lose high quality, albeit high\u2011salary contributors. Their replacements will almost certainly be lower\u2011tier players making less money and, in many cases, offering less production.<\/p>\n
The bottom line is that the Broncos have significantly less roster and cap flexibility than many fans believed. The team obviously is investing in continuity, but even if they went more with free agents, the Broncos likely have a narrow two\u2011 to three\u2011year window to realistically win a Super Bowl. After that it is not impossible for an SB, of course, but it becomes much more difficult (see Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2026 NFL cap \u00a0$\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 301,200,000 Denver Bronco 2026 Salary % of 2026 cap 1 Nik Bonito \u00a0 $\u00a0\u00a026,500,000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2062],"tags":[232,231,258,84698,2426,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-809596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-broncos","8":"tag-broncos","9":"tag-denver","10":"tag-denver-broncos","11":"tag-denver-broncos-discussion","12":"tag-denverbroncos","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116220624120727648","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}