Russell Wilson contract puts Broncos on hook for $35.4 million cap charge this year, $49.6 million next year
For anyone with common sense and/or a basic understanding of how Broncos coach Sean Payton operates, it's no surprise. The Broncos are releasing quarterback Russell Wilson, when the new league year begins and the cap consequences can be spread over 2024 and 2025.
They'll make the move a post-June 1 transaction. It could result, based on our understanding the payments made and still owed and per a source with knowledge of the situation, a cap charge of $35.4 million for 2024, and another cap charge of $49.6 million for 2025.
If/when Wilson signs elsewhere in 2024, the Broncos would get a dollar-for-dollar credit against his $39 million guaranteed compensation package in 2024. That credit would apply, we're told, in 2025.
It's a massive cap obligation, to be sure. It would have gotten worse, however, if the Broncos had kept Wilson beyond March 17, when his $37 million salary for 2025 would have become fully guaranteed.
That vesting dynamic was at the heart of last season's request that he change his contract. They did not — despite his characterization of the situation — ask him to waive injury guarantees. The Broncos wanted to move the date on which the 2025 injury guarantees became fully guaranteed.
If he had emerged from the 2023 season with an injury that prevented him from passing a physical before March 17, the Broncos would not have been able to cut him without having the 2025 salary becoming fully guaranteed.
When a player is cut with a post-June 1 salary designation, his contract remains on the books for cap-calculation purposes until June 2. That won't matter for Wilson, however. Because his $17 million base salary is fully guaranteed, his cap number is $35.4 million if he's on the team in 2024, and his cap number is $35.4 million for 2024 if he's cut after June 1. If his $17 million base salary were not fully guaranteed, his cap number would be $35.4 million for now, and it would drop to $18.4 million after June 1.
Finally, here's why he won't be traded. If a trade happens before June 1, the Broncos would take the full cap charge in 2024. Beyond that, no one would take on that kind of obligation; the Broncos would have to pay a lot of what would be $76 million in fully-guaranteed dollars over the next two years.
UPDATE 7:03 p.m. ET: In a prior version of this item, we pegged the 2025 cap charge at $53.6 million. It's actually $49.6 million. There's another twist, too. We'll explain in a separate post.
