Peyton Manning. (John Leyba, The Denver Post)
It’s not the Broncos are poor so much as they had already spent a large percentage of their payroll before free agency began.
In 2015 alone, the Broncos will pay $15 million to quarterback Peyton Manning, $12.822 million to receiver Demaryius Thomas, $10.9 million to cornerback Chris Harris, $10 million to left tackle Ryan Clady and $9.754 million to outside linebacker Von Miller.
That’s $58.48 million, or 39.1 percent, of the Broncos’ salary cap, allocated to five players.
We’ll take it out to six more players. The Broncos this season will pay DeMarcus Ware ($7 million), Emmanuel Sanders ($7 million, including a deferred $3 million signing bonus that will be paid Sunday), T.J. Ward ($6.5 million), Aqib Talib ($6 million), Louis Vasquez ($5 million) and freshly signed tight end Owen Daniels ($4.75 million, including a $3 million signing bonus) a combined $36.25 million.
The top 11 players, thus, account for $94.73 million, or 63.3 percent of the Broncos’ payroll.
The other 42 players get to split $54.9 million, or an average of $1.31 million.
These are not unusual percentages. NFL economics has always been a caste system where the stars get rich and a large percentage of the roster must live on good money. And so it goes.
