Elway needs to act like Chiefs
John Elway needs to stop talking about the Chiefs. And start acting like them. Consider this: Before he threw $60 million in guaranteed money at a defensive tackle, Kansas City general manager Brett Veach had $22.3 million in projected cap space for 2020, according to OverTheCap.com. With an estimated $35.8 million cushion for 2021.
Chris Jones got a 4-year extension.
Before Justin Simmons agreed to a 1-year franchise tender of
$11.4 million, the same site pegged the Broncos’ cap space at $28.7 million for 2020. And an estimated $55.6 million for 2021.
No. 31 got a giant check with the words PROVE IT scribbled on the memo line.
Yes, a one-year franchise tag gives the Broncos flexibility at a time when NFL yachts are suddenly sailing with cardboard bottoms.
Yes, the coronavirus is Michael Myers, we are Laurie Strode, and even cows as sacred as fans at training camp will be tipped, one by one, until the dreaded curve flattens again.
Yes, the season is a coin-flip. Yes, Elway can do this dance again next year. Or the year after that.
Yes, Spotrac says, NFL teams have devoted an average 6.8% of their 2020 cap space toward safeties, and the Broncos have already doubled that at 13.1%, tops in the NFL. (The Chiefs are next, at 11.3%.)
Yes, of the 14 NFL players slapped with the franchise tag, 12 didn’t get contract extensions. A dozen guys on one-year show-me contracts is a single-season NFL high since the wrinkle was introduced in 1993.
Yes, it’s not personal. And it’s not just here.
Yes, we’ve heard the spin. Uncertain revenues!
Salary cap dropping!
Limited — or no — fans allowed at Empower Field!
COVID!
COVID!
COVID!
All true.
All just as true at Arrowhead as it will be at Mile High.
Good math. Sound math. Smart business. Just lousy PR.
All Simmons has done is make friends, ingratiate himself to the
community and get better on the football field every year.
What’s the word Elway, the Broncos’ general manager, likes to use in faint praise of Garett Bolles? Right. Available.
Simmons isn’t just available. He’s the only Bronco to appear in 100% of the team’s defensive snaps in each of the past two seasons.
Players come and go. Coaches come and go. There’s 31, roaming center field, same as it ever was.
You’ll say he’s no Atwater. No Ward. Barely Lynch. That coach Vic Fangio’s scheme makes stars of safeties and nickel backs.
You’ll say that the system got him paid.
PROVE IT.
Well, consider this, too: Only two Broncos safeties have been named to the Associated Press All-Pro first or second team since 2000 — Brian Dawkins in 2009 and Simmons last fall.
Some serious flash in that pan. He’s a draft pick, one of yours, that made it.
So what does Wednesday say to the players you’ve been stockpiling?
The ones who are supposed to serve as the foundation for the next run at a Super Bowl? The ones who look to 31 in the locker room, to his work off the field, to his even keel whenever the ship starts sinking?
PROVE IT.
You’ll say there’s time. But Drew Lock, if he sticks, won’t be on a rookie deal forever. Elway’s newest franchise quarterback doesn’t hit a cap number above $1.9 million until 2022.
Which gives you the flexibility to build — and invest — everywhere else until that day comes. When that problem becomes a good one to have. So why create another?
You’ll say Simmons’ agent, Todd France, had an agenda. Although Broncos cap guru
Rich Hurtado was negotiating on behalf of No. 31 until January, when Elway got him to change sides. If a deal could’ve been done, it stands to reason that Hurtado would’ve landed the plane by now.
He still might. In the meantime, with Myers still out there, bloody kitchen knife in hand, Simmons is betting on himself. Chances are, he’ll take those odds all the way to the bank. That next giant check is coming.
The only question is from whom.