Last week, the Denver Broncos sign 13 players in futures contracts for 2025, giving the team a clearer picture of its salary cap situation for the upcoming league year. The Broncos are projected to have $35.7 million in cap space for 2025, according to Over the hood.
However, this is based on a projected base salary cap of $272.5 million. Also, OTC’s numbers show a different number for effective cap space, but that’s because not all teams have 51 players under contract yet for 2025. Teams that are still in the playoffs, as well as teams still weighing roster decisions, are down to 51 players at this time.
There are a few things to keep in mind regarding cap space: Some of it will be taken into account by the incentives owed and the escalators that come into effect.
Incentives are added to a player’s contract in one year but carry over to the next year, such as those in Courtland Sutton’s deal. He earned a $500,000 bonus by reaching 1,065 receiving yards for the 2024 season in Week 18.
Escalators are built into some contracts, such as for players on rookie contracts who are taken in the second round or later. A good example is linebacker Nik Bonitto, who was named to the Pro Bowl and thus received a salary increase in 2025.
Bonitto’s selection to the Pro Bowl brought him to the Proven Performance Index (PPE) level three, which increases his base salary to the amount of a restricted free agent offered at the second-round level. This amount should be $5.217 million.
We’ll know more about deal and PPE amounts once the NFL officially sets the base salary cap for 2025. However, Broncos fans should know that there will be players like Bonitto who could see their salary increase due to indexations.
As for what this means regarding free agency, it doesn’t change much. The Broncos will likely be active this time around, but probably not as aggressive as in 2023, as they have a few players they may want to extend and, thus, commit more money and cap space to them.
We’ll talk more about the offseason and players to watch in the coming weeks. But for now, know that the Broncos are in a better cap position than they were a year ago and therefore have more flexibility when it comes to their offseason approach.
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