Broncos 2023 Salary-Cap Space Revealed After NFL Announcement

The Denver Broncos' salary-cap situation has been revealed.

Tuesday's news that Sean Payton will become the Denver Broncos' new head coach was an important offseason domino to fall. With Payton in the fold, I'll be talking more about the Broncos' offseason approach in the coming weeks, but an important piece of the puzzle was revealed earlier this week before the big hire news broke. 

The NFL announced that the base salary cap for 2023 will be $224.8 million, slightly less than the $225M that Over The Cap projected.

The NFL informed teams today that the 2023 salary cap will be a record $224.8 million per club, sources tell me and @RapSheet.

That’s up from $208.2 million in 2022, $182.5M in 2021 (COVID adjustment), 198.2M in 2020 and $188.2M in 2019.

— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) January 30, 2023

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The base salary cap, combined with any cap carryover from 2022, gives each team its salary cap for the 2023 offseason and, thus, the cap space given to work with. The Broncos are estimated to have $9.2M in cap space.

A couple of things to keep in mind: First, while OTC shows that the Broncos have an effective cap space of less than $9.2M, that's because not every team has signed players to get to 51 guys under contract.

The Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles still field practice squads, given their Super Bowl trips. and haven't signed those players to futures contracts. Thus, OTC doesn't have accurate figures for effective cap space until after the Super Bowl.

The Broncos do have 62 players under contract, so the $9.2M figure should be correct. Again, only the top 51 cap hits apply during the offseason.

Second, and more importantly, the Broncos are certain to make some moves to gain additional cap space. Players such as OL Graham Glasgow, CB Ronald Darby, RB Chase Edmonds, and DL Mike Purcell could either be released or have their deals renegotiated to give the Broncos more cap space.

While restructures (converting base salary into a signing bonus) can't be ruled out, the Broncos don't have to do any to get more cap space. The four players previously mentioned have no guaranteed money in their respective deals, so the Broncos could cut them without too much dead money, or they could renegotiate to convert base salary into incentives.

One other thing to keep in mind is that the 2023 free-agent class isn't expected to be a deep group. The Broncos are likely to add a few players in free agency but aren't likely to swing big.

There could be some players the Broncos retain, though it may depend on what those players want in a contract. DL Dre'Mont Jones, LB Alex Singleton, and OG Dalton Risner are the main players to watch.

I'll talk more in the coming weeks about a potential offseason plan the Broncos could follow to let them fill some needs and stay cap compliant.

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