Broncos safety Justin Simmons is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent on March 18. Denver won’t let him hit the open market.
Broncos general manager John Elway has until March 12 to use a one-year franchise tag on one player for the 2020 season. If the team is not able to sign Simmons to a long-term deal before then, he will be tagged.
“We’re hoping to get a deal done before that, but if we don’t get something done, we’ll use the tag,” Elway said at the NFL combine on Tuesday, according to ESPN’s Jeff Legwold.
The franchise tag for safeties is expected to be worth about $11.6 million this year. If tagged, Simmons would still be a candidate to receive a long-term contract extension later in the offseason.
Simmons expects to be tagged and isn’t opposed to it.
“We’re kind of sitting on the optimistic side of things because of in the past when the Broncos have used a tag and Elway’s used it, they’ve always worked out a longterm deal,” Simmons said Monday on SiriusXM NFL Radio. “So we’re pretty confident that we’ll be able to work something out.”
Both sides are hopeful a deal will get done.
“I think we’ll be able [to] get something done with Justin,” Elway said. “He’s an important piece of what we do. We want to get something done.”
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