Did the Broncos rewrite the salary cap rulebook by cutting Russell Wilson?
Denver swallowed a record dead money charge to move on from Russell Wilson in 2024. Two years later, the league appears to be following its lead.
When the Denver Broncos released Russell Wilson in March 2024, they took on roughly $85 million in dead money, then the largest single-player cap charge in NFL history. The conventional wisdom held that a hit that size would gut a roster for years. Instead, Denver went 24-10 over the next two seasons, reached the AFC Championship Game, and cleared the books faster than almost anyone expected. Now the rest of the league looks like it has taken notes.
How big was the dead money hit, and why did it matter?
Cutting Russell Wilson left Denver with about $85 million in dead money, split across a $53 million charge in 2024 and $32 million in 2025. The 2024 figure alone consumed 20.75 percent of the salary cap, an extraordinary share to spend on a player no longer on the roster. Combined with releases of Randy Gregory, Tim Patrick, and Justin Simmons, the Broncos carried roughly $89.1 million in dead money against a $255.4 million cap. The number was so far outside the norm that one AFC personnel executive surveyed by ESPN noted it was more than twice what any other team had ever absorbed for a single player. The accepted thinking was that a charge of that magnitude would handcuff Denver for several seasons. That assumption is exactly what the franchise set out to disprove.
How did Denver recover so quickly?
The recovery started with the quarterback position. Denver drafted Bo Nix 12th overall in 2024, replacing Wilson's enormous salary with a rookie contract that gave the front office room to operate. From there the Broncos leaned on familiar accounting tools, converting base salaries into signing bonuses to create short-term flexibility while locking core players into long-term extensions worth around $325 million in guarantees. Strong ownership resources helped, as did unusual roster stability, with 18 starters appearing in at least 13 games. The defense did its part too, finishing first in defensive EPA in 2024. By 2026, Wilson's dead money had cleared entirely, and Denver's dead money sat near $3.4 million, the second-lowest figure in the league.
Are other teams now following the same playbook?
The clearest sign that Denver shifted the calculus is the Miami Dolphins, who absorbed a new-record $179 million in dead money this offseason. Miami released Tua Tagovailoa, who counts $55.4 million against the 2026 cap, cut Tyreek Hill, and traded Jaylen Waddle and Jalen Ramsey, then signed Malik Willis to a three-year, $67.5 million deal. The Atlanta Falcons took on $35.4 million by releasing Kirk Cousins and added Tagovailoa on a veteran minimum. The Arizona Cardinals carried $46.57 million in dead money after moving on from Kyler Murray. Even the Cleveland Browns, who kept Deshaun Watson and his fully guaranteed $230 million deal, are positioned to eat $131 million if they release him. None of these moves looked thinkable before Denver demonstrated the tape could be ripped off.
What does it say about modern cap management?
The Broncos did not invent dead money, and front offices have long cut players to free up draft or free agency space. What changed was the perceived ceiling on how much pain a contender could endure and still win. An NFC general manager told ESPN that Denver got everyone to think you could rip the tape off if you really had to and work through it. An AFC executive put it more bluntly, saying Denver changed how people thought about it because the charge was twice anything seen before, yet the team still reached the playoffs. A steadily rising salary cap makes absorbing those hits across multiple years more manageable, which lowers the risk of a clean break. Denver has since extended Sean Payton through 2030 and added Jaylen Waddle this offseason, building around Bo Nix after falling one game short of the Super Bowl. The lesson the rest of the league seems to have absorbed is that a bad contract is a problem to solve, not a sentence to serve.
Players in this story
Sources
- ESPN: Did Broncos start NFL salary cap trend by cutting Russell Wilson?
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