Left guard Ben Powers wanted to stay with the Broncos so much that he accepted a restructured, one-year contract, Mike Klis of 9News reports.
Powers took a significant pay cut but received more guaranteed money and will still make “starter money” this season, per Klis.
Powers was scheduled to earn $13 million in 2026, although none was guaranteed until he made the season-opening, 53-player roster.
He will compete with Alex Palczewski for the starting job.
Powers, 29, played only eight games last season. He tore a biceps against the Eagles in Week 5 and played the final five games with a previously undisclosed Lisfranc foot injury, according to Klis.
Palczewski replaced Powers, who had started every game the previous three seasons.
Broncos Clips
The Broncos are a popular draw in Denver. Thanks to an agreement between the Broncos and the Metropolitan Football Stadium District, some tickets will be sold on Tuesday at a steep discount.
Via Parker Gabriel of the Denver Post, half-priced tickets will be available on Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. local time. Some tickets will cost as little as $23.
Specific rules apply. Tickets are limited to four per household, and tickets can’t be purchased for more than one game. There are no refunds, cancellations, exchanges, resales, or transfers.
It’s a rare opportunity to go to a game, given that the Broncos had a 99.5-percent season-ticket renewal rate, with a waiting list of more than 100,000.
Gabriel’s report doesn’t specify the number of tickets that will be available. However many there are, they’ll likely move quickly.
The Broncos announced a pair of roster moves on Sunday.
Linebacker Jordan Turner has been placed on the non-football injury list and guard Nick Gargiulo has been placed on the physically unable to perform list. Both players still count against the 90-man roster and can be activated at any point in training camp.
The Broncos have their first practice of camp on Wednesday.
Turner signed with Denver after going undrafted last year. He appeared in seven regular season games and two playoff contests while seeing the majority of his playing time on special teams. He had eight tackles in those contests.
Gargiulo was a 2024 seventh-round pick, but has not played in any regular season or postseason games.
Broncos outside linebacker Nik Bonitto made 13.5 sacks in 2024 and finished ninth in Defensive Player of the Year voting. In 2025, he had 14 sacks and was fourth in Defensive Player of the Year voting.
He expects a similar jump from 2025 to 2026 but likely sees even more attention from the opponent. He spent the offseason studying other top pass rushers to see how they dealt with double teams.
Bonitto said Thursday he hopes to improve in “all facets” of his game this season.
“I still have a lot of room to grow in my game — in the run and in the pass,” Bonitto said, via Aric DiLalla of the team website. “Just keep trying to fine-tune these things, keep looking at other guys around the league that are doing it at a high level and seeing how I can put it into my game to continue to be the best player I know I can be.”
Bonitto might have been even better in two postseason games, forcing two fumbles, including a strip-sack, along with three tackles, a quarterback hit and a tackle for loss. Bonitto’s two forced fumbles led to six points in Denver’s 33-30 overtime win over the Bills.
“It’s obviously great when you can do it in the regular season,” Bonitto said, “but doing it in the postseason in those big type of moments, it gives you that confidence to know you’re supposed to be there, and you can make those types of plays on big stages.”
Broncos outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper is scheduled for a court hearing on Friday before a Douglas County (Colorado) judge, Mike Klis of 9News reports. Cooper will appear virtually along with his attorney, Harvey Steinberg.
The expectation is Cooper’s case will be continued to a later date, which would leave it unresolved before the Broncos report to training camp Tuesday.
Cooper was arrested twice in June and faces multiple charges arising from the June 4 incident involving his then-girlfriend. He is charged with second-degree assault, third-degree assault, criminal mischief, violating a protective order and harassment via repeated telephone calls.
He sat out minicamp last month in a mutual decision with the team to focus on his personal health and well-being. Klis reports that Cooper recently completed an inpatient counseling, therapy, mental health and overall wellness program that lasted more than a month.
Cooper, 28, has 31.5 sacks through the first five seasons of his career, with 27 coming in the past three seasons.
Broncos running back RJ Harvey is preparing for his second NFL season by studying some of the league’s best running backs.
Harvey, who arrived in Denver as a second-round rookie last year, said he has spent a lot of time this offseason studying some of the top players at his position to learn what makes them great.
“Just watching more film, watching other guys around the league, watching their film, I’ve been watching a lot of film of Christian McCaffrey, Kenneth Walker, Jahmyr Gibbs, guys like that, just trying to see things on film that they do, trying to help better my game. Year Two in the system, I feel way more comfortable and it’s only going to get better from where I left off,” Harvey said, via Andrew Mason of Denver Sports 104.3.
Harvey had 146 carries for 540 yards and seven touchdowns last season, and added 47 catches for 356 yards and five more touchdowns. He made a big impact as a rookie, but he aspires to make the same kind of impact as the top running backs in the NFL.
The Broncos are expected to re-hire outside linebackers coach Michael Wilhoite as a member of the staff, Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports reports.
The team fired Wilhoite in March 2025 after his arrest on suspicion of second-degree assault of a police officer, misdemeanor obstruction of a police officer and misdemeanor criminal mischief. But all charges were dismissed on June 8, 2026.
Wilhoite still faces a civil lawsuit, filed by Denver police officer Jesus Galvan Chavez, who Wilhoite allegedly punched in the face at a drop-off traffic zone at Denver International Airport on Feb. 23, 2025.
Wilhoite joined the team’s staff as outside linebackers coach in 2023 after the Chargers fired him.
Even at 84, Hall of Fame head coach Bill Parcells continues to stay connected to the game.
As recently noted by the folks at JoeBucsFan.com, Parcells said in an interview last month with Sal Licata that Parcells continues to watch two NFL teams closely.
“With Sean [Payton’s] team, Todd Bowles, the Tampa Bay coach, I try to,” Parcells said. “Because I know I’m going to talk to them the next week.”
Both Payton and Bowles worked for Parcells before becoming head coaches.
The fact that Payton (who coaches the Broncos after a long tenure with the Saints) and Bowles (who coached the Jets before become the Buccaneers’ coach) keep in regular touch with Parcells shows that Parcells has plenty of advice to give — and that they’re more than willing to take it.
Parcells coached four NFL teams over 19 seasons, leading the Giants to two Super Bowl wins and took the Patriots to the Super Bowl. He got the Jets to the AFC Championship in his second season. In 2013, Parcells was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Veteran cornerback Levi Wallace did not play in the NFL after landing on Jacksonville’s injured reserve list last summer and he won’t be coming back to the field in 2026.
Wallace announced his retirement on Instagram on Friday. Wallace noted that he was undrafted in 2018 and went on to spend eight years in the league, which he termed a “not bad” run in the league.
Wallace signed with the Bills after playing at Alabama and started all 57 regular season and playoff games he played in four seasons with Buffalo. He spent the next two seasons with the Steelers and saw his final game action with the Broncos in 2024.
Wallace had 333 tackles, 12 interceptions, 30 passes defensed and a fumble recovery in 96 career regular season games. He also had 23 tackles, an interception and a sack in six postseason outings.
When it comes to the NFL’s effort to send the Brian Flores case to arbitration, it’s apparently not over until the NFL says it’s over.
Regardless, the presiding judge has now made it abundantly clear that it’s over.
Despite a court ruling and an appeals court ruling that the claims brought by Brian Flores (against the Dolphins, Giants, Broncos, and Texans), Ray Horton (against the Titans), and Steve Wilks (against the Cardinals) must be decided in court, the NFL filed a motion to reconsider the ruling that slammed the door on arbitration.
On Wednesday, Judge Valerie Caproni denied the NFL’s latest motion.
The 15-page ruling begins with an expression of exasperation regarding the nearly four-and-a-half-year-old litigation: “This case continues to linger at the starting block. Or, to use a more fitting metaphor, this case continues to linger as the teams mill about in the players’ tunnels.”
Elsewhere in the written decision, there are some not-so-subtle indications of the judge’s impatience with the NFL’s efforts to keep fighting over a settled issue. From page 9: “Defendants can articulate no reason why these arguments were not raised in their response to Plaintiffs’ Motion for Reconsideration. . . . With sophisticated law firms, it is hard to fathom a plausible explanation.”
Also, from the same page: “Defendants opted for an iterative stream of arguments to buy themselves a few more months hanging out in the players’ tunnels. . . .”
Putting it another way, and as a judge said to the opposing lawyer in a case I was handling more than 20 years ago, “At some point, you stop arguing to the court and start arguing with the court.”
Judge Caproni’s order concludes like this: “Defendants’ seemingly-never-ending list of arguments why they should not have to litigate this case has run its course. Stepping back, while Defendants are free to spend endless attorneys’ fees to pursue the forum they think will be most advantageous to them, arguments about the superior efficiencies of arbitration ring hollow. . . . Instead of proceeding, discovery and motion practice for these three teams have been further delayed so this Court can deal with these teams’ attempt to take yet another run at how to avoid district court litigation and will, presumably, be delayed further while they pursue yet another appeal.”
It’s a mostly tactful way of saying to the NFL, “Enough. You’ve lost on this issue. Stop asking for arbitration and get to work on defending yourself in the litigation.”
Attorney Doug Wigdor issues a statement regarding the latest decision.
“At this point, the NFL and its teams have lost on this issue at the Second Circuit, were denied en banc review by the Second Circuit, were denied Supreme Court review and have now had the District Court twice confirm that the claims will not proceed in an NFL-controlled forum,” Wigdor said. “We hope the NFL and its teams will accept these rulings and proceed with the litigation.”
Presumably, that will happen. One of these days. Or, more accurately, one of these years.
