With the deadline for striking a long-term deal less than a week away, the Broncos and franchise-tagged linebacker Von Miller have engaged in their most thorough and sustained negotiations to date.
Via Mike Klis of 9news.com in Denver, the Broncos have made a pair of offers, sandwiched around a proposal to the team from Miller’s agent, Joby Branion.
In one of their moves, the Broncos shifted the vesting of $19 million in guaranteed money from March 2018 to March 2017. Though Klis calls it a “potential breakthrough,” Miller’s camp always viewed it as a necessity, with no agreement likely absent an acceleration of the trigger by a year.
Branion, per Klis, submitted a new proposal on Friday, with the Broncos later making a new offer that, according to Klis, “again enriched the guaranteed portion.” Branion didn’t respond to the latest offer, telling G.M. John Elway that Branion would “sleep on it” and talk again on Saturday.
The two sides don’t disagree on the length of total value of the deal: six years, $114.5 million. The open questions relate to the amount fully guaranteed at signing, the injury-only guarantees at signing, and the dates on which any injury-only guarantees become full guarantees.
Ultimately, a deal gets done if the bottom-line positions for both sides intersect. At this point, there’s reason for optimism that they will, by virtue of the fact that the two sides have been communicating more over the past day or so than they ever have had, at any time.
UPDATE 2:58 a.m. ET: A prior version of this article was titled “Broncos, Von Miller trade offers.” That apparently caused some to think that the Broncos are fielding “trade offers” for Miller. Given the full headline, and within the context of recent reports regarding the negotiations, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would actually think that. I nevertheless swapped the word “exchange” for “trade” to remove any doubt. Although there’s a chance someone will now think that Miller will be spending the upcoming school year as a student in Spain, or something.
