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How Much Do The Broncos Owe Russell Wilson? Veteran QB’s Contract Guarantees Explained Ahead Of His Release
The Broncos are going to release quarterback Russell Wilson when the next league year begins, and the cap effects may be stretched between 2024 and 2025. Read to know more details!
Russell Wilson will be grateful to the Denver Broncos for enabling him to prepare for his first foray into free agency. This week, the Denver Broncos announced that Wilson will be released after March 13, spreading his cap hit over two seasons and allowing him to join anywhere in the league.
Wilson is unusual among free agents because of the amount of money remaining on his contract. The deal was one of the worst in NFL history, with the Broncos signing the quarterback to a hefty extension before he took a single snap. In their minds, locking up Wilson was the best strategy, but it relied totally on him becoming excellent, which never happened.
How much do the Denver Broncos owe Russell Wilson?
The Broncos owe Wilson $39 million this season alone, with additional cap space being gobbled up by dead money down the road. Now, here's where things get interesting. Since Wilson is being cut, there is offset wording in his contract that effectively ensures he can't earn anything less than the $39 million due to him by the Broncos. If a team signs Wilson, they give him a salary, and Denver compensates for anything less than $39 million.
If this were a regular procedure, a team would pay Wilson $15-20 million per year or more, with the Broncos covering the gap to reach $39 million. However, this assumes that things concluded amicably, which they did not.
They will make the shift after June 1. Based on our understanding of the payments made and still outstanding, and according to reports on the matter, it might result in a $35.4 million cap charge for 2024 and another $49.6 million cap charge for 2025. It is, without a doubt, a significant cap requirement. The situation would have become worse if the Broncos had maintained Wilson after March 17, when his $37 million pay for 2025 would have become fully guaranteed.
Russell Wilson's contract with The Broncos
Wilson agreed to a five-year, $242.5 million contract deal with the Broncos in 2022. The contract provided $161 million in total guarantees, with $124 million guaranteed at signing.
Wilson's $161 million in guarantees were the second-highest in the NFL at the time the agreement was signed. Only Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson, who earned a fully guaranteed $230 million contract, outperformed Wilson.
Since then, four quarterbacks have signed contracts with bigger guarantees than Wilson. Jalen Hurts and Lamar Jackson earned $179.4 million and $185 million, respectively, while Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow also eclipsed Wilson's guaranteed money of $200 million.
Releasing Wilson will cost the Broncos a record $85 million in dead cap hits. This is by far the highest dead cap hit in NFL history, more than doubling Matt Ryan's previous record of $40.5 million set in 2022. Dead cap space is the salary cap space occupied by a player who is no longer with a team. It is often the result of guaranteed money already given to a player who retires, is released, or is moved.
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