Thread: After Not Rushing Drew Lock, the Broncos’ Patience Is Paying Off

Originally Posted by Buff

I asked a cap expert on twitter - Joel Corrt @corryjoel - a couple months ago about Flacco's contract - here's what he said:

-- which essentially means that all of the dead money is concentrated in 2020, so there wouldn't be a multi-year hit. And the savings from this year cancels out the dead money when you roll it over.

And the real takeaway is what I and others have said, it's net zero, as the cap that was freed by the restructured rolls into next year and offsets the cap hit next year if he's cut. However, if the Broncos designated him a post June cut (they can cut him before, but declared him a june 2nd cut), then they can spread it over two years.

So, this structured could in no way hurt them, and only gives them cap flexibility.

Originally Posted by Tned

And the real takeaway is what I and others have said, it's net zero, as the cap that was freed by the restructured rolls into next year and offsets the cap hit next year if he's cut. However, if the Broncos designated him a post June cut (they can cut him before, but declared him a june 2nd cut), then they can spread it over two years.

So, this structured could in no way hurt them, and only gives them cap flexibility.

Yes exactly, and there has been a lot of hackish criticism from national media folks who portrayed it as though Elway was making a longer term commitment to Flacco - which is why there is a lot of confusion on the matter.

I remember during/after the Chiefs game in particular there was a lot of piling on.

Originally Posted by Buff

Yes exactly, and there has been a lot of hackish criticism from national media folks who portrayed it as though Elway was making a longer term commitment to Flacco - which is why there is a lot of confusion on the matter.

I remember during/after the Chiefs game in particular there was a lot of piling on.

That's because media are typically comprised of hacks.

Just ask me next time, I'll give you the straight scoop. They don't call me Tgenius for nothing.

Originally Posted by G_Money

You could be right - cap stuff isn't my bread and butter. I just know Flacco had no guaranteed money before the restructure and now has the signing bonus hit in 2020 if we cut him. It all depends on the cap roll.

We currently have 16.25 million in cap space this year, most from the ~13 million Flacco restructure. If that rolls over to next year then there was literally no impact to the change whatsoever other than when Flacco got that money. Up front instead of gameday checks.

We could, I believe, even reach an injury settlement with him and release him this season which would accelerate that cap hit back to this year.

Originally Posted by Buff

I asked a cap expert on twitter - Joel Corrt @corryjoel - a couple months ago about Flacco's contract - here's what he said:

-- which essentially means that all of the dead money is concentrated in 2020, so there wouldn't be a multi-year hit. And the savings from this year cancels out the dead money when you roll it over. If Elway would have gone and spent that $13.6 on some scrub, it'd be a different story - but he showed some good restraint.

Yeah, it's the rollover I keep missing. Because John freed up money but didn't use it, that's fine. If he'd used it, then we'd be in a different situation. Thanks Buff and Tned.

Originally Posted by G_Money

Yeah, it's the rollover I keep missing. Because John freed up money but didn't use it, that's fine. If he'd used it, then we'd be in a different situation. Thanks Buff and Tned.

You are very Welcome G!
Always a pleasure.

Originally Posted by G_Money

The Broncos did not want to play Lock to start the year. That's fine - I didn't want Lock to start Week 1 either.

But then they restructured Flacco's deal right before the season, which means they will suffer if they cut him after this year. Now that doesn't make a lot of sense if the plan is to work Lock in during the season sometime.

Of course Lock was injured, so maybe they figured they'd redshirt him - but being as bad as they were meant that they would be drafting high in the first round again and needed to know if Lock was worth foregoing another top QB draft option in favor of help in other areas. So he HAD to play.

They still wouldn't "rush" him or even commit to pulling him off IR. If Brandon Allen had not completely faceplanted in bad weather and put up one of the worst Broncos performances in decades on offense, Lock might not have gotten on the field still. They were talking about holding him until the last 2 or 3 games of the year.

Drew took good advantage of his time healing and recovering. The VR system seems to have helped with his reads. He has had more time to get comfortable with what is being asked of him. But Denver can't really sell this as the plan all along, because it wasn't. It took a lot of carnage to get here. The 11-car pileup that was Denver's first 11 games resulted in what looks like the correct deployment schedule for Lock, and I'm glad. I wanted to see a bunch of him so that Denver could see what he offered over several games, and enough game tape for teams to adjust, before the draft decisions had to be made.

Lock is playing it like he really is the QBOTF. Sometimes you just get lucky in how that comes about. Denver's next goal should be to keep him alive. Fix the line, yo. It helps now that the first round pick won't be a QB, like it helped that Denver managed to snag Lock in the 2nd after passing on him in the first.

But thank luck, not planning. It wasn't great process to get here, so try to enact better process in giving your newly-minted QBOTF his best chance at long-term success please.

This is all correct.

The problem is not in sitting Lock for part of the season. It's that they had no intention of playing him at all this year!

What was the point of that? "He's not ready!" His fragile ego would suffer too much if they threw him in there and he sucked and the team lost? If that happened he wasn't the guy anyway. NFL QB is NOT a place for fragile egos.

Did any of you watch the Texans fans booing DeSean Watson as he came off the field at halftime? This was an 8-4 team leading their division. And 1 bad 1/2 and 70,000 fans are booing their franchise QB?

Can you imagine what that feels like? Not good. You better not be a wilting violet in the NFL.

All the crap about "he's not ready" was just that. Crap. NOthing terrible was going to happen to Drew Lock if he started in October and wasn't great. He's STILL "not ready" if "ready" means he's experienced enough to not have bad games where he looks lost out there.

He will struggle some. They will need to be patient. This is a two or three year learning process.

Where I fault Elway is for his idiot "Joe Flacco is in his prime" nonsense -- for having a Joe Flacco plan in the first place!

Originally Posted by G_Money

Yeah, it's the rollover I keep missing. Because John freed up money but didn't use it, that's fine. If he'd used it, then we'd be in a different situation. Thanks Buff and Tned.

Why then did they need to do it in the first place? That makes no sense. Why tie yourself to Joe Flacco for multiple years if you don't have to? Or take a $13m cap hit in the process?

The existing Joe Flacco contract was just fine. There was no reason to alter it. The reason Elway did that was because Joe Flacco was supposed to be the starting QB for the next three years. Period.

And that was just painfully stupid.

Originally Posted by Cugel

Why then did they need to do it in the first place? That makes no sense. Why tie yourself to Joe Flacco for multiple years if you don't have to? Or take a $13m cap hit in the process?

The existing Joe Flacco contract was just fine. There was no reason to alter it. The reason Elway did that was because Joe Flacco was supposed to be the starting QB for the next three years. Period.

And that was just painfully stupid.

Lol @ your utterly false ridiculous assertions. We get that Elway has somehow personally wronged you but it doesn't alter reality.

Reality, as you can see above and throughout, is they restructured Flacco to free up space this year if needed. It wasn't needed, the money still sits, and we're not tied to Flacco for any reason whatsoever beyond this season.

The money freed up will roll and cost us nothing. Zero sum game that said nothing about Flacco's future. If it did John would've added a guarantee, he did not.

Like it or not, you clearly can't handle when Elway isn't the worst person on the planet, there is NOTHING in that contract move negative for Denver in any way, shape, or form.

But continue to cut and paste your obvious hatred for Elway.

Originally Posted by Cugel

Why then did they need to do it in the first place? That makes no sense. Why tie yourself to Joe Flacco for multiple years if you don't have to? Or take a $13m cap hit in the process?

The existing Joe Flacco contract was just fine. There was no reason to alter it. The reason Elway did that was because Joe Flacco was supposed to be the starting QB for the next three years. Period.

And that was just painfully stupid.

No!

I made a post about this 1 page back.
SUMMARY:

We re-did the Flacco contract to be able to re-up Janovich and Simmons THIS year. We would not have had the money to do so if we did not re-do Flaccos contract.
Jano got done
Simmons camp was talking, but then changed their mind with how well he has been playing. They want to wait until the year is over so he can get top dollar.

Originally Posted by underrated29

No!

I made a post about this 1 page back.
SUMMARY:

We re-did the Flacco contract to be able to re-up Janovich and Simmons THIS year. We would not have had the money to do so if we did not re-do Flaccos contract.
Jano got done
Simmons camp was talking, but then changed their mind with how well he has been playing. They want to wait until the year is over so he can get top dollar.

Even if it wasn't for Simmons and Jano specifically (which it may have been) -- it makes sense to give yourself maximum flexibility in the event that you want to trade for a player or sign a free agent -- knowing that you can roll the cap space over to next year if you don't use it.

It was a liquidity play with little downside.

It gave Denver options. Thankfully they didn't drop that cash this year so they can get away from Flacco without further penalty, but I get the idea of making sure you have options.

I just don't think John ever thought Flacco was as bad an option as we all did, especially past this season. For him there was very little downside. "If I use the money I just can't cut Flacco, which is fine cuz he'll still be 'fighting' for that starting job next year anyway!"

For me it's still dodging a bullet, but I understand the plan.

Originally Posted by G_Money

Yeah, it's the rollover I keep missing. Because John freed up money but didn't use it, that's fine. If he'd used it, then we'd be in a different situation. Thanks Buff and Tned.

Even then, we wouldn't really be in a different situation, meaning, it was still all a wash, but let's say moving Flacco's cap space to 2020 let's them sign Simmons, they are just "swapping" when the exact same cap dollars hit. Simmons would move from 2020 to 2019, by signing him in this league year and Flacco's would move to 2020, but net/net, it's all the same cap hit.

Bottom line, it was a very smart move without any possibility of a negative scenario for the Broncos, it was all completely positive.

It's also worth noting that as a vested veteran, if Flacco was on the week 1 roster this year, his salary was fully guaranteed, and since that was a given, changing it to a signing bonus also made no difference in the 2019 guarantee, and the only difference as Davii said was that he got it all in August or whenever they did it, rather than spreading it over 17 weeks.

Originally Posted by Cugel

Why then did they need to do it in the first place? That makes no sense. Why tie yourself to Joe Flacco for multiple years if you don't have to? Or take a $13m cap hit in the process?

The existing Joe Flacco contract was just fine. There was no reason to alter it. The reason Elway did that was because Joe Flacco was supposed to be the starting QB for the next three years. Period.

And that was just painfully stupid.

You clearly have no concept of how the salary cap works, nor the details of the restructure. This post is nonsensical.