Today’s questions about the Broncos come from Elijah Kempton.
Q: What are Tim Tebow’s salary cap numbers for the remainder of his contract? And could the Broncos make it work financially for him and Peyton Manning to be teammates?
A: Tebow already has been paid the bulk of the money in his contract. He received a guaranteed $6.278 million payment last July as training camp opened. His remaining salaries and salary cap charges are relatively modest, and his salary cap numbers go down each year for the rest of his contract.
His salary cap figure for 2012 is $3.142 million (including $1.1 million in base salary). His cap figure for 2013 is $2.624 million (including $1.055 million in base salary). His cap figure for 2013 is $2.239 million (including $670,000 in base salary).
So the Broncos can afford to keep Tebow and still give Manning the blockbuster contract that will be required to sign the only four-time MVP in NFL history.
But what remains to be seen is whether the Broncos would want to keep Tebow if Manning were their starting quarterback. Manning’s offense with the Broncos would be dramatically different from Tebow’s offense with the Broncos.
If they signed Manning, the Broncos likely would explore trading Tebow. The Jacksonville Jaguars are Tebow’s hometown team and they have a new owner who has said that he would have drafted Tebow in 2010 had he been the owner then. So the Broncos’ first call about trading Tebow probably would be to the Jaguars.
Jeff Legwold: jlegwold@denverpost.com
