Broncos Insider Casts Doubt on LT Garett Bolles' Future in Denver

The Denver Broncos have many needs on their roster going into 2024, with a handful more that could come to the surface, pending some critical decisions that need to be made to get the team under the salary cap. As it currently stands, the Broncos have about $24 million they have to erase just to become cap-compliant, and that’s before finalizing their decision on Russell Wilson’s contract.

While that may seem like an unfathomable amount of money, especially considering how the Broncos could add another $50 million in dead money should they release Wilson before June 1, there's a pathway to open up a significant amount of cap space to make a few free-agent additions and be able to field a relatively competitive team.

One of those potential moves — arguably the most necessary for a multitude of factors — is restructuring left tackle Garett Bolles. That's the best-case scenario, and if one Denver insider is right, releasing Bolles would be the worst. 

In a discussion with DNVR, NFL Network's James Palmer dished on the situation, also revealing that Bolles may be anticipating the Broncos making some kind of move relative to his contract. 

"What's really going to happen with this dead money is you're going to lose other players on your roster. I don't know how they keep Garett Bolles on this team," Palmer said via DNVR. "I know Garett thinks that. You can't pay everybody on the offensive line, you're going to have this much dead money... so there's other spots that are going to take a hit, but I think you could make a free-agent quarterback work." 

Bolles is in the last year of a four-year extension he signed back in 2019, with a 2024 salary cap hit of $20M, due to his $15.75M base salary, a $250,000 roster bonus, and a $4M portion of his prorated signing bonus still on the books, per Over The Cap. While releasing or trading Bolles would open up $16M in space, that would be an epic mistake for the Broncos' offensive line.

Allow me to break it down. 

The 32-year-old veteran is coming off a great 2023 campaign, as he finished the season with the sixth-highest pass-blocking grade (83.8) among all tackles, according to Pro Football Focus, while only allowing 32 total pressures and three sacks on 649 pass-blocking snaps. He was tied with seven other offensive tackles for the third-highest pass-block win rate (92%), according to ESPN's Next Gen Stats. 

Even though he didn’t grade out nearly as well as a run blocker, Bolles was still very consistent in moving guys off of their spot to open up lanes in the run game.

Despite being one of the more polarizing Broncos players due to his struggles with holding penalties throughout his career, Bolles is an absolute necessity for this team moving forward for the continuity of the offensive line. Denver was fortunate enough to have four out of its five starting offensive linemen – including Bolles – play over 1,000 snaps each last year, helping to build a foundation up front that could turn into one of the league’s better units.

Denver has holes at nearly every position on its roster in some form or another. Whether it’s a need for a quality starter or to bolster depth at the position, Denver’s roster is desperately lacking talent overall.

Sure, the Broncos could release Bolles and draft a replacement with the No. 12 overall pick in this year's draft, in what is considered a very strong tackle class, but that selection could be better used finding a new franchise quarterback or other priority position of need. One of the arguments against trading superstar cornerback Patrick Surtain for extra draft capital also rings true in trying to replace Bolles: why cut open a hole in your boat only to use that piece to fix another one?

Rather than releasing or trading him, the Broncos could offer Bolles a second contract extension, give him a slight raise in his salary, and hand him a nice signing bonus for his work to make sticking around for 2024 and 2025 worth it for him. With a little bit of help from my Mile High Huddle colleagues Erick Trickel and Bob Morris, I’ve come up with a hypothetical contract offer that would be beneficial for both sides.

What a New Contract Could Look Like

The deal would be a two-year extension worth $36M with a $14.8M signing bonus and another $18M guaranteed for Bolles' base salary in 2025. There are also two 'void years' attached to the end of the deal in 2027 and 2028 for salary cap purposes.

The $14.8M signing bonus would be a partial conversion of his $15.75M base salary in 2024, plus the $250,000 in per-game roster bonuses Bolles is already due, to drop his base salary to the projected $1.2M veteran minimum for a player with eight accrued seasons. That signing bonus would then prorate over the next five years, making the salary cap hit for that bonus $2.96M per season and effectively lowering Bolles’s cap hit from $20M to $8.16M for 2024. 

That number would be even lower, but there is still the $4M prorated cap hit from the signing bonus on his previous deal that has to be factored in, too. Going into the future of the deal, Bolles would have matching salary cap hits in 2025 and 2026 of $20.96M. 

Should the Broncos void the deal, the remaining prorated portions of the $14.M signing bonus would accelerate to the same year when the deal was voided. For example, if Bolles played out the 2025 season and was released afterward, the Broncos would be on the hook for $8.88M in dead money in 2026.

This may not be a massive increase in his salary on an average per-year basis to make him one of the highest-paid players at the position, but Bolles would be guaranteed another $32.8M over the next two years while also allowing the Broncos some much-needed space against the salary cap in 2024.

Bottom Line

Based on Bolles' loyalty to the franchise, his on-field performance, and the needs surrounding the entirety of the roster, this would be a logical and feasible extension for both parties. But if Bolles is concerned about his situation as Palmer claims, there's good reason to project the Broncos making some kind of move relative to his deal. 

Time will tell whether that shakes out in the form of a Bolles extension or a release. But, again, a release would be a mistake.