The Denver Broncos have yet to sign their 2020 draft class. Just how much will it cost to sign their 10-player class?
The team’s drafted rookies will have a combined cap hit of $9,980,665 this season, according to Spotrac.com. But that doesn’t simply mean $9.9 million should be subtracted from the current cap total to calculate a new number.
During the offseason, only the 51 most-expensive players count against an NFL team’s salary cap. So some of the Broncos’ rookies will knock off several players currently counting against the Top 51 cap total.
Here’s a look at the draft class and the previous Top 51 players (knocked off players have their cap hits crossed out, including a few rookies).
| Rookie | Previous Top 51 |
| Jerry Jeudy ($2,762,359) | Phillip Lindsay ($755,000) |
| K.J. Hamler ($1,297,660) | Davontae Harris ($750,000) |
| Michael Ojemudia ($863,890) | Alexander Johnson ($750,000) |
| Lloyd Cushenberry ($846,544) | Trey Marshall ($750,000) |
| McTelvin Agim ($824,317) | Tim Patrick ( |
| Albert Okwuegbunam ($797,260) | Juwann Winfree ( |
| Justin Strnad ( |
Malik Reed ( |
| Netane Muti ( |
Calvin Anderson ( |
| Tyrie Cleveland ( |
Andrew Beck ( |
| Derrek Tuszka ( |
Fred Brown ( |
| Rookie Pool: $9,980,665 | Top 51 drop-offs: $6,761,448 |
When we subtract the 10 players that will be bumped down ($6,761,448) from the rookie pool/new bottom 10 players ($9,980,665) the net addition to the salary cap is just $3,219,217. So, in salary cap terms, the Broncos’ draft class will only cost a little more than $3.2 million.
Denver is projected to have $16,862,356 in cap space by Spotrac and $17,250,120 by OverTheCap.com, an average of $17,056,238. After subtracting the rookie net cap hit from that average, we project that the Broncos have approximately $13,837,021 in remaining salary cap space.
If Denver does not use all of its cap space this season, the unused cap will roll over to be added to the team’s salary cap total in 2021.
