ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- As Sean Payton strolled among his players before a recent Denver Broncos practice, he looked like a football coach who had it all.
The Broncos' new $175 million, 205,000-square-foot team headquarters, set to open later this month, sparkled in the afternoon sun, and virtually every starter from last season's 14-3 team was back. The team had also added Jaylen Waddle to the receiver corps, further contributing to the good vibes.
But Payton's easy smile was also a testament to suddenly not having to worry about team finances -- most notably, dead money against the salary cap. The team's financial house is back in order, with the then-record $85 million in dead money from quarterback Russell Wilson's 2024 release now completely off the books.
"It feels good," Payton said. "It's important. It's hard to do that."
As the Broncos get set to adjourn from their offseason work for the summer on Thursday, their present stands in sharp contrast with their past. Denver has the NFL's second-lowest dead money charges (salary cap hits for players no longer on the roster) at about $3.4 million, with $2.16 million coming from the offseason release of linebacker Dre Greenlaw. Only the reigning Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks have less.
The previous historic amount of dead money -- once unthinkable to many in the league who make those kinds of decisions -- didn't set Denver back on the field. In fact, the Broncos thrived, going 24-10 in the two seasons that they dealt with the financial constraints of Wilson's release. They broke an eight-year playoff drought, made two postseason trips and advanced to the AFC Championship Game in January. And in doing so, they might have given the NFL a template on how to separate from high-priced personnel mistakes without suffering years of losing football.
For instance, Denver's success post-Wilson might have helped prompt the Miami Dolphins' housecleaning this offseason. In a much more extreme makeover, Miami has taken on a new-record $179 million worth of dead cap charges, mostly notably $99.2 million from the release of quarterback Tua Tagovailoa ($55.4 million of which is going against this year's cap). But in an informal survey among 11 coaches and personnel executives around the league by ESPN in recent weeks, many respondents believed Miami's offseason strategy was a progression from what the Broncos did two years ago.
"Teams have had dead money issues, cut guys so they could draft or do free agency, and people have had to cut guys on big contracts," an NFC general manager said. "But I do think [the Broncos] got everybody to kind of think you could rip the tape off if you really had to and you could work through it and it didn't always have to be this long road back."
THE BRONCOS RELEASED Wilson as the 2024 combine ended, the same event in which Oregon quarterback Bo Nix had shown Denver's decision-makers that he had the composure and mental approach to step into Wilson's void.
And that void was considerable from a financial standpoint. His release cost Denver $53 million against the 2024 salary cap (a whopping 20.75% of their cap) and $32 million in 2025. The transaction left the league's richest ownership group with one of the smallest budgets compared to the rest of the league.
Not only did the Broncos release Wilson, but they also accumulated dead money by cutting edge rusher Randy Gregory ($7.13 million), wide receiver Tim Patrick ($6.14 million) and safety Justin Simmons ($3.75 million). All told, the Broncos suffered a league-leading $89.1 million in dead money charges against a $255.4 million salary cap, with 13 players costing more than $1 million in dead cap.
Even with the difficulty of those decisions, the Broncos said there was universal agreement from the decision-makers -- including owner/CEO Greg Penner -- on what needed to be done. Despite Denver going all in on Wilson less than two years earlier, dealing away four early picks, then signing the quarterback to a five-year extension for $245 million ($165 million guaranteed), the team had to make a change.
Over the 2022-23 seasons, Wilson was 25th in QBR (44.7), 23rd in yards per dropback (5.9) and 27th in completion percentage (63.3). The Broncos went to Wilson during the 2023 season to restructure some guarantees in his contract, a negotiation Wilson later said included a threat to be benched if he did not agree. The Broncos denied that claim.
The Broncos eventually sat Wilson for the final two games of the 2023 season to ensure that injury guarantees didn't kick in. That essentially ended the Wilson era, with Payton, Penner and general manager George Paton saying they made a clear-eyed decision and were fully prepared for the consequences.
"It wasn't something you do lightly," Payton said in retrospect. "I've said if somebody tells you that you can have $100,000 to renovate your house or half that, you're going to choose the bigger number every time. But when people have asked, I've said we started at a point where we weren't going to make excuses, we made the decision, get to work. There are a ton of built-in excuses, and if you're going to make them, then you can't make that kind of a decision."
IN ESPN'S DISCUSSIONS with coaches and personnel executives, many believed the Broncos' ability to navigate the dead money -- and that of any team that would consider taking a similar approach -- is based on available quarterback options. They believed having either a veteran, long-term quarterback under contract or a draft class filled with potential starters was necessary before taking a massive dead money hit.
"You can be bold, and I think more people will be if the cap keeps getting bigger ... but if you do, the quarterback issue will sort of dictate how many people do something like that again," the NFC general manager said. "[The Broncos] had some Pro Bowl-level guys on the roster, especially on defense, a really good offensive line in place and a draft with some quarterbacks."
Quarterbacks Caleb Williams (Chicago Bears), Jayden Daniels (Washington Commanders) and Drake Maye (New England Patriots) went 1-2-3 in the 2024 draft. Once they became clear top-five picks -- basically making them unavailable to the Broncos -- Payton had zeroed in on Nix and picked him at No. 12, as Michael Penix Jr. and J.J. McCarthy came off the board before him.
"It's always the quarterback," an AFC personnel executive said. "Any team, [the Broncos] included, you're going to need good enough play at quarterback and a good enough team around the guy if you're going to go to the playoffs like they did right away, especially if the move you made was [moving on from] the previous quarterback. And a rookie deal at quarterback on a playoff-worthy team, that never hurts."
And the Broncos believed Nix was ready physically and mentally to play immediately after starting 61 college games. Payton has repeatedly said Nix's ability to avoid negative plays (he was sacked 10 times combined in his two seasons at Oregon over 879 pass attempts), his accuracy (his 77.4% completion rate as a senior was an NCAA record) and how he managed end of half or end of game situations were selling points.
"I think we all saw Bo right away for what he is: a player who was ready to be in that job, the work ethic, competitiveness, preparation. That guy showed up and looked like he'd been here for years," Broncos tackle Mike McGlinchey said. "Certainly that's a big part of what we can do and how we did the last couple years ... but they built a team around the whole situation."
In the two years since the Broncos flipped from Wilson to Nix, other teams similarly tried to buoy dead cap hits with cheaper QB alternatives. The Dolphins' dead money accumulation went beyond Tagovailoa, as they took significant cap hits from releasing wide receiver Tyreek Hill ($28.25 million) and trading Waddle ($23.2 million) and cornerback Jalen Ramsey ($20.87 million). The Dolphins turned to free agency at QB after that dead money spree, signing Malik Willis to a three-year, $67.5 million deal.
At the league meetings earlier this year, first-year Dolphins general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan said the short-term salary pain was necessary -- and his preferred approach -- to attack the team's roster issues.
"If you keep kicking the can down the road, you never get healthy," Sullivan said. "I mean, there's two philosophies that you subscribe to in the National Football League. You pay as you go or you're living on credit. ... We want the flexibility that paying as you go provides and we can't get there unless we kind of take it on the chin this year."
Then there are the Atlanta Falcons, who signed Tagovailoa for the veteran minimum after absorbing $35.4 million in dead cap charges ($22.7 million this year, $12.7 million in 2027) for releasing veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins. Tagovailoa joins Penix Jr. -- selected four picks before Nix -- as they move to the next phase of their team building.
The Arizona Cardinals also joined the ranks when they took on a $46.57 million dead money charge with the release of quarterback Kyler Murray after seven seasons. Many in the league believe teams such as the Cardinals are positioning themselves for a 2027 draft that projects to have multiple quarterbacks with first-round grades -- players such as Arch Manning (Texas), Dante Moore (Oregon), CJ Carr (Notre Dame), Drew Mestemaker (Oklahoma State), Darian Mensah (Miami) and LaNorris Sellers (South Carolina).
Some of those surveyed offered a comparison to the Cleveland Browns, who signed quarterback Deshaun Watson to a fully guaranteed $230 million deal after a 2022 trade in which Cleveland sent six draft picks (including three first-rounders) to the Houston Texans for Watson and a draft pick. Watson has started just 19 games over the four seasons since the trade, including none last season. He served an 11-game suspension after he was accused by more than two dozen women of sexual misconduct during massage sessions and then missed more time due to two separate ruptures of his Achilles tendon. But faced with highly punitive dead money charges, the Browns have kept Watson on the roster. First-year coach Todd Monken has said Watson is in the competition to be Cleveland's starter this season.
The Browns, who have adjusted Watson's contract with voidable years added for cap purposes, would have taken a dead money charge of over $131 million had they released Watson this year and will still end up with a dead money charge of more than $86 million when his contract voids after the season -- or roughly what the Broncos took on with Wilson's release.
WHILE THE QB situation is key, it's not the only piece of the puzzle in navigating those dead money crunches. Nix had a quality first season on a 10-7 team (his 29 touchdown passes were second-best all-time for a rookie) and ran an efficient offense in Year 2 (25 touchdown throws, plus another five rushing scores). But Denver also had a great defense (No. 1 in defensive EPA in 2024) and a youthful core. And the Broncos have an ownership group flush with cash and equity, within and beyond the franchise.
The Broncos have flexed that financial muscle repeatedly in the past two years, most recently giving All-Pro cornerback Pat Surtain II a $5 million raise earlier this month with the potential of another $5 million escalator next season. They have retained a core of almost two dozen players with long-term contract extensions, paying more than $325 million guaranteed at signing. And they have turned base salary into immediate signing bonuses to create cap space, utilizing the kind of resources most franchises do not have.
"I love the approach we took, which was none of us were ever going to make excuses," Penner said. "We just look at it like, 'We're going to have some constraints; we're going to have to be scrappy and we're going to have to figure it out.'"
It helped that the Broncos had rare injury avoidance during their 2024 revival. Denver had 18 players start at least 13 games, including three offensive linemen who started every game in front of Nix. That helped establish the foundation that drove the Broncos to the AFC's best record in 2025.
"The offensive line permeates your whole building. ... [With] a young quarterback, you can look at how the group in front of him plays sometimes when you look at development or progress," Payton said. "... That group, the lines, has always been a priority."
AS PAYTON WORKED his way around the practice fields at the team's OTAs and minicamp, he was surrounded by a roster that, except for the trade for Waddle and the loss of defensive tackle John Franklin-Myers in free agency, remains mostly intact from last season. Denver has very little dead money and roughly $30 million in salary cap space, a combination that seemed far-fetched 27 months ago. The Broncos might have also blazed a path to give teams in similar situations a quicker, less painful way out of an underperforming roster with high-priced players.
"Do I think they changed how people thought about it?" the AFC personnel executive asked. "I think so. That number [$85 million] was, like, over twice what any other team had taken on for any other player, and they went to the playoffs.
"It's not going to work for everybody, and nobody wants to have to make dead money decisions like that, but it worked and anything that works in this league is going to get a look."
So keep an eye on the Dolphins, Falcons, Cardinals and maybe even the Browns. The Broncos proved a ton of dead money doesn't necessarily mean prolonged rebuilding. With the right players in place and a clear plan, teams can maneuver those massive salary cap hits and still find success ... and maybe even a trip to the AFC title game as the conference's 1-seed.
"When you [execute a turnaround] with a record-setting amount [of dead money], it's a credit to everyone: the young players, coaches, scouts," Payton said. "I don't know that anyone can physically feel it or see it, but certainly it exists when it pertains to your budget."
ESPN Dolphins reporter Marcel Louis-Jacques contributed to this story.