Broncos general manager John Elway appears poised to sign a veteran quarterback to serve as Drew Lock’s backup in 2020.
Broncos coach Vic Fangio said at the NFL combine Tuesday that he doesn’t think Drew Lock’s backup has to be a veteran. That doesn’t mean general manager John Elway won’t look for a veteran, though.
Elway has the final say on Denver’s roster decisions and though the team might not need a veteran, Elway seems to prefer having one.
“We’ll see, [but] I think I’d like to get a veteran [quarterback],” Elway told ESPN’s Jeff Legwold. “Just with the youth we have at the position now and somebody that can help, you know, help in that situation. … I think I’d prefer a veteran, but we’ll see what’s available.”
The Broncos seem unlikely to bring back Joe Flacco and though Brandon Allen is 27 years old, he’s probably not the kind of veteran Elway is talking about. That leaves Brett Rypien, who is entering just his second season.
Denver will likely have to find a veteran through free agency in March.
As Legwold noted, the list of veteran QBs set to hit free agency includes Chase Daniel, Marcus Mariota and Matt Moore. Broncos fans should probably keep an eye on those QBs as free agency approaches.
The Broncos might not sign a veteran backup quarterback this offseason.
The Broncos are probably going to move on from Joe Flacco this offseason, an expected move that could save the team more than $10 million in salary cap space. If that happens, though, Denver won’t have a veteran backup on the roster behind second-year QB Drew Lock.
Brandon Allen is set to become a restricted free agent and Brett Rypien will be entering just his second year in the league. A veteran like Chase Daniel — who served as a backup for the Bears while Vic Fangio was their defensive coordinator in 2018 — could be a logical fit.
Although a player like Daniel could make sense, Fangio hinted at the NFL combine on Tuesday that the team may not necessarily bring in a veteran to serve as Lock’s backup.
“It doesn’t have to be veteran,” Fangio said of the team’s backup QB plans. “We just want to make sure we have a capable backup behind him. Allen may be that guy. ‘Rip’ may be that guy.
“We’ll look and see what else is out there, but I don’t think it has to be veteran. ‘Rip’ and Allen were great guys for Drew when he took over for him to be in those meetings beside them. From that angle, those guys could fulfill that part too.”
Allen started in three games last year. Rypien was not credited for dressing for any games so he will be considered a first-year player in 2020.
What is “dead money” and how does it work in the NFL?
As the NFL’s new league year draws closer, fans will begin to hear the term “dead money” mentioned when teams part ways with certain players. What is dead money in the NFL?
A team has dead money when part of their salary cap for that season goes toward a player no longer on the team. So for example, if the Broncos gave a quarterback a $2 million signing bonus on a two-year contract, that bonus would be prorated over the course of the deal.
In that kind of scenario, Denver would have $1 million salary cap hits in 2020 and 2021. If the Broncos cut that QB before the 2021 season, his prorated bonus would still count against the team’s salary cap. Denver would have $1 million in “dead money” because his bonus was still a cap hit.
This year, the Broncos have the sixth-lowest dead cap total in the NFL, just $498,486, according to OverTheCap.com. The Buccaneers ($130,241) have the lowest total and the Panthers ($15,673,834) have the highest total.
Denver’s dead money total will go up considerably if the team cuts quarterback Joe Flacco and offensive lineman Ron Leary — those two moves would increase the team’s dead money by $14,475,000.
Even though they would take a big dead money hit, cutting those players would still give the Broncos a net savings of $18,487,500 because the salaries for Flacco and Leary far outweigh their dead money totals.
Will the Broncos try to trade quarterback Joe Flacco this offseason?
Joe Flacco’s 2019 campaign prematurely came to an end when he suffered a bulging disc in his neck midway through the season. Denver placed the veteran quarterback on injured reserve and a few weeks later, the Broncos inserted rookie Drew Lock into the starting lineup.
Lock played well and helped the team win four of their final five games. Lock is poised to remain the starter in 2020 and Denver has little reason to bring back Flacco and his $20.25 million base salary for next season.
So it was interesting to hear ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler report Tuesday that “the Broncos believe he should be able to play next season.” Denver obviously wants Flacco to make a full recovery, but why would the team leak that he’s getting healthy if they don’t plan to bring him back?
The Broncos might try to restructure Flacco’s contract and bring him back as a backup to Lock, or they might try to trade him. Getting the word out that he’s healthy could help Flacco’s trade value, although not by much.
Denver probably wouldn’t be able to fetch anything more than a late-round pick for Flacco but something is better than nothing. The team might end up cutting him, creating a net salary cap savings of $10.05 million in 2020.
Whether it’s via cut or trade, Flacco’s time with the Broncos will likely come to an end this offseason. Flacco turned 35 years old in January.
With the Bears’ current salary cap situation, they should bring in an affordable veteran QB option that will compete with Mitchell Trubisky.
The Bears will be in the market for a veteran quarterback come free agency next month. It’s not a matter of if they sign a quarterback in free agency, it’s a matter of who.
After a disappointing season where the offense was one of the worst in the NFL, changes are being made to correct the issues on offense. Quarterback is just one of those issues, but it’s the most important.
Depending on the level of veteran quarterback the Bears want to bring in — a sure-fire starter or a veteran backup that can challenge Mitchell Trubisky — there are no shortage of options.
But considering the Bears will be short on money with their current salary cap situation, it makes most sense for the Bears to bring in an affordable option that will battle Trubisky for the starting job — not be handed it upon arrival.
As for who that veteran quarterback could be, Bleacher Report believes the Bears could be a possible landing spot for Denver’s Joe Flacco, who serves to potentially be a cap-casualty with the Broncos going full-steam ahead with Drew Lock.
While Flacco is a low-end starter at this point in his career, he could be a nice insurance/bridge option for a team with questions at the position or looking to add someone in the draft.
The Chicago Bears may also kick the tires on Flacco—provided he would negotiate a low-end contract—as they continue to debate the future of Mitchell Trubisky.
Bringing in Flacco would provide the Bears with some insurance for Trubisky, should his struggles carry over into his fourth season. Trubisky would also serve well to learn from a former Super Bowl-winning quarterback. And if Trubisky pans out — assuming the Bears sign Flacco to a low-end contract — Flacco would be a valuable backup quarterback on the roster.
The Broncos have a starting QB in Drew Lock and now need to give him a solid backup.
The Denver Broncos have found their starting quarterback for the foreseeable future in Drew Lock. There should be no controversy this offseason.
But the team has a few different directions it can go in terms of the team’s backup quarterback spot. Will the team look within for Lock’s backup or will it go outside the organization and find a different option than one currently on the roster? Here are three options.
Option 1: Joe Flacco
(Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports)
The first option to consider is going to be Flacco, the veteran the team traded for last March and hoped to get a couple seasons out of. Instead, they might have just gotten part of one season.
Whether Flacco could be the team’s backup next season rests on a couple of things. One, is his contract, the one the team chose to restructure. Secondly, would be whether he has an interest in staying in Denver or if the organization has an interest in him staying.
It’s hard to imagine there being much interest on either side and though there would be a lot of dead money for the team to eat if it cuts ties with him, that should be the direction things end up going.
Nothing is guaranteed in the NFL — not even a trip to the Super Bowl. Here are the most shocking upsets in conference championship history.
Nothing is guaranteed in the NFL — not even a trip to the Super Bowl despite a team’s status as the best in the conference or the league. Balls take funny bounces, established teams can be taken apart by upstarts, and individual performances can usurp the efforts of others. As such, there have been several surprise results in conference championship games. Here are the biggest such upsets in NFL history.
January 10, 1982: San Francisco 49ers 28, Dallas Cowboys 27
(Manny Rubio-USA TODAY Sports)
Was the game that gave us “The Catch” and marked the beginning of Bill Walsh’s 49ers dynasty an upset? Based on past performance, it would appear to be so. Tom Landry’s team hadn’t missed the playoffs since 1974, and the 49ers hadn’t made the playoffs since 1972, with only one winning season in that time before their surprising 13-3 campaign in 1981. Dallas came into the game as three-point road favorites, and they had a 27-21 lead before Joe Montana found Dwight Clark in the back of the end zone with 51 seconds left in the game. Walsh beat Paul Brown, his former mentor, in Super Bowl XVI two weeks later, 26-21. It was the first of three Lombardi Trophies for Walsh, perhaps the greatest offensive mind in NFL history.
The Denver Broncos used three different quarterbacks in 2019. How did each quarterback do?
In looking back at the 2019 season, we will be handing out grades this offseason for each of the positional units of the Denver Broncos. We’ll jump right in with the position everyone thinks of first: quarterback.
Most teams in the league hope to start one quarterback all season and if not, the hope is that there is a capable backup sitting on the bench. In the case of the Broncos, the team used three different quarterbacks in 2019.
We will take a look at each of them individually, handing out a grade for each player and that will lead to a collective grade for the positional group.
During the offseason, the Broncos were looking to move on from Case Keenum, who had just posted a lackluster 2018 season. The answer to how they would do that came in March when the team traded for Flacco.
Ousted as the starting quarterback of the Baltimore Ravens by the fast-rising Lamar Jackson, Flacco, a Super-Bowl winning quarterback, needed a change of scenery. Denver seemed to be a logical place for him to renew his career, but if you instantly hated this move, you and I have something in common.
Flacco’s best days are behind him, regardless of what John Elway may think, but the reason he was so bad for the Broncos was that he is just not a good fit for the offense Rich Scangarello wanted to install.
The offense sputtered with Flacco at the helm and that was evident even in the preseason. But if you want an idea of just how bad he was, go back and watch the Week 7 game against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Allen started three games for the Broncos and that was probably too many. For some reason, the team was hesitant to go with its second-round pick, Drew Lock.
Instead, Allen, a former sixth-round pick playing for his third different team came in and won a game against the Cleveland Browns and suddenly, fans were talking about how he could be the starter going forward and into the future.
Really?
That’s just how hungry Broncos Country is for a quarterback it can believe in, but Allen is a competent backup quarterback at absolute best.
He did the best he could given the circumstances but the fact that he was the starter for three games was a poor decision by the coaching staff. That’s not on Allen, but if he was a better quarterback when he played, it might not have been a poor decision.
Will the Broncos part ways with quarterback Joe Flacco during the 2020 NFL offseason?
When the Broncos traded a mid-round pick to the Ravens in exchange for Joe Flacco last offseason, they didn’t envision the quarterback’s 2019 season ending with a neck injury and losing record.
After Flacco went down with an injury, the team turned to Brandon Allen temporarily while rookie Drew Lock worked his way back from a thumb injury. Lock started the final five games of the season and went 4-1.
There’s little doubt that Lock will remain the starter in 2020 but there is some uncertainty about Flacco’s future. Broncos general manager John Elway was asked during his end-of-season press conference on Dec. 30 if Flacco will return for next season.
“We haven’t gotten into that yet, but we’ll look at that and see what’s best,” Elway said. “Obviously, we’re going to take some time [to make a decision]. This year we’ll do it a little bit different than we’ve done in the past. We’re going to wait for our own team evaluations for a month. We’re going to get away from it.
“The coaches will look at it. The personnel side will look at it, get together early February and really get a good objective view of what our team’s going to look like next year and what we need to do. I think that’s why we’ll take the time and evaluate everything. Obviously, Joe will be one of those that we’ll look at and we’ll see his situation.”
Denver could save more than $10 million by parting ways with Flacco, bringing its 2020 salary cap space close to $80 million. Given that Lock looks like the team’s QB of the future, Flacco’s time with the Broncos might be coming to an end soon.
Flacco was uncertain but optimistic about his future on Dec. 30.
“I have no idea [what will happen],” Flacco said. “Over the next little bit of time, I’ll have conversations with people within the organization to see what the plan is. Obviously, [I’m] not happy with the way the season went for me — just how unfortunate it was. I’m really just optimistic about the future and we’ll see what it holds.”
Flacco completed 65.3 percent of his passes for 1,822 yards with six touchdowns against five interceptions in eight games this offseason. The veteran quarterback will turn 35 years old on Jan. 16.
