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ENGLEWOOD, Colo. – The Denver Broncos have one of the longer lists of free agents in the league and just under two weeks out from the formal opening of the NFL’s festival of checks, it’s a good time to take a one-a-day look at some of the impending Broncos’ free agents. Today: Julius Thomas
Friday: Terrance Knighton When the Broncos traded fifth-round and sixth-round picks to move back into the fourth round of the 2011 draft, they did it because they wanted Thomas. At the time, executive vice president of football operations/general manager John Elway called Thomas, then a prospect who had played just one year of college football at Portland State, a “talented tight end with great potential, a tremendous athlete with good speed and strong hands." This is how the draft is supposed to work, at least for teams that consistently make the most of the annual selection event. If it goes well, a team identifies quality prospects who grow and advance in the job. Then, four years into his career, that player arrives to the doorstep of free agency. That then puts the team in position to have to make a decision about whether to sign the player to the second contract, a formal notice that he is a "core'' guy, or the team and the player move on. And that puts the Broncos and Thomas right here, right now. Thomas and his representatives believe back-to-back 12-touchdown seasons are worthy of a contract that would put Thomas at the top of the pay scale for his position. Elway said the Broncos “tried to get something done with Julius last season. They wanted to test the market." The Broncos like Thomas as a player. But with Demaryius Thomas also a free agent, for the Broncos to sign and keep both in a salary-cap world, it would have mean one of those players would have to agree to a contract that was lower than he could have received on the open market. At the scouting combine in Indianapolis, there were plenty of folks working the rooms, including Julius Thomas’ agent, Frank Bauer, who said Thomas is looking for -- as any player in free agency would be -- plenty of guaranteed money in a blockbuster deal. To this point, the guaranteed money is more than the Broncos are willing to give. As a result the Broncos, still working through talks to get a long-term deal done for Demaryius Thomas, have shown their intentions on the matter. Demaryius Thomas will stay, with a likely franchise-player tag in the short-term followed by a long-term deal the Broncos believe will get done in the coming week and months. The Broncos’ top three tight ends – Julius Thomas, Virgil Green and Jacob Tamme – are all scheduled to be unrestricted free agents, so the position needs plenty of attention and the Broncos have already scheduled a visit with James Casey. Elway also had this to say about Green this past week; “We like Virgil a lot, he was a big part of, he’s was kind of our rock, he was asked to do a lot of different things. … He does it all, he’s very versatile. We like Virgil a lot, too; we would love to have him back." In the end the Broncos enjoyed the fruits of Julius Thomas’ work in the scoring zone – 24 touchdowns in his last 27 games – but not enough to push him on to the front burner in terms of how their available salary-cap dollars will be allocated. Thomas has not played more than 14 games in any season and even with all of the good he’s done in the offense, there is a part of the numbers game that pushed the Broncos another direction. Julius Thomas’ 109 career catches are two fewer than Demaryius Thomas had in the 2014 season alone. Choices are made in free agency all the time, choices that turn out to be good, bad or somewhere in between, and unless one side or the other has the significant change of heart, the Broncos and Julius Thomas appear to have made theirs.
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