The Broncos and Raiders are, at the moment, football opposites.
Denver ripped off 11 straight wins in the middle of the 2025 season, plowed to a 14-3 regular season, won the AFC West for the first time in a decade and came within a Bo Nix ankle fracture and a snowy second half on the Front Range — how ironic, given the mild winter before and since — of making the Super Bowl.
Las Vegas lost 10 straight in the middle of the season, finished 3-14 in the regular season, finished in the division’s basement for a second straight year, but, at least, was bad enough to ensure it in next month’s draft.
Perhaps it should come as little surprise, then, that the division rivals also acted like opposites over the first week of free agency.
The Broncos went on a retention binge, signing or tendering 13 of their 17 restricted and unrestricted free agents, as well as all four of their exclusive-rights free agents. As of Friday afternoon, Denver is the only team in the NFL that has yet to sign an external free agent.
The Raiders gorged in a different way, blowing the center market out of the water with a massive, $27 million per year contract for Baltimore’s Tyler Linderbaum and rocketing toward the top of the league in money spent. They currently rank No. 2 in overall spending at $281 million, according to OvertheCap data, trailing only Tennessee. Those two clubs leading the pack make sense, given the Titans are racing to build around last year’s No. 1 overall pick, QB Cam Ward, and the Raiders are trying to get a jump on putting a foundation in place for the near-certain quarterback of their future, Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza.
Las Vegas has signed or traded for eight players already this week, with contracts valued at $10.25 million per year or more. Six of them came from other teams.
Denver hasn’t signed a player for more than $7.5 million per year, and its returning inside linebacker duo of Alex Singleton and Justin Strnad ($13.5 million AAV combined) will make slightly more than half of Vegas’ new Nakobe Dean/Quay Walker pairing ($25.6 million AAV). The Broncos also lost a good one in DL John Franklin-Myers, on a $20-plus million-per-year deal, to Tennessee.
The Raiders have 13 of their own unrestricted free agents still on the market as of Friday afternoon.
The Broncos have two and one of them — fullback Mike Burton — is 34 years old and missed the entire season with a torn hamstring.
These two clubs, then, are extreme examples of what is essentially an annual truth in the NFL.
If you’re good, you try to keep your players and stay good.
If you’re bad, you try to get good as quickly as possible, regardless of how much turnover it takes.
Funny enough, the Broncos and Raiders are tied by one commonality this week: For all the transactions completed, their respective free agencies so far are at least partially defined by what they didn’t do. The Broncos did not sign a single outside player. The Raiders did not trade Maxx Crosby after a blockbuster deal appeared sealed before .
In the middle of the division, Kansas City and Los Angeles each fell somewhere in the middle. They’ve added key players but also lost several, too.
The Chiefs lost a terrific player but loaded up on draft capital by trading star corner Trent McDuffie to the Los Angeles Rams. They lost safety Bryan Cook and replaced him with Alohi Gilman. They filled one major hole by jumping out early and signing Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker at running back, though replacing McDuffie and Jaylen Watson (also headed to the Rams) is no easy task.
After a 6-11 campaign, the Chiefs aren’t overhauling, but they are a team in transition.
The Chargers lost one terrific pass-rusher, Odafe Oweh, and retained another, Khalil Mack. They brought in players deeply familiar with new offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel — FB Ale Ingold and OL Cole Strange are both arriving from Miami — and others who seem like perfect fits in TE Charlie Kolar and RB Keaton Mitchell.
They have tinkered, mostly in the modest-to-mid-salary range. They’re most similar, in some ways, to what the Broncos have done so far. Denver has just conducted all of its work with its own players.
So far, the posturing has shaped up as you’d expect. Three teams are working to chase down a Denver team that took the division by three games in 2025.
Whatap also clear: There’s a ton of offseason left. Every one of the four will likely make more free agent additions. Each team has its own first-round draft pick next month, plus the Chiefs will select right in front of the Broncos at No. 29, thanks to the McDuffie trade.
Has the pack done enough to close what in 2025 was a substantial gap to the Broncos? We’re a long way from finding out, but Denver’s made a clear bet that the foundation of its title defense will come from what it already had built before the past week.
