The Colin Kaepernick-to-Denver speculation has died down over the last few weeks as the 49ers have made it clear that they’re more than willing to enter the 2016 season with Kaepernick as their quarterback. Still, Kaepernick has yet to take back his trade demand, and until he does, there will be at least some motivation to move him on San Francisco’s end.
And with the Broncos seemingly the only franchise with interest in trading for the former Super Bowl quarterback, a trade will likely have to be made on their terms — that goes for Kaepernick, too.
According to Jason Cole of Bleacher Report, if the Broncos are going to bring Kaepernick to Denver, he’ll have to take a sizable pay cut.
Source indicated that #Broncos have asked QB Colin Kaepernick to take a pay cut to approximately $7M for 2016 season if #49ers trade him.
— Jason Cole (@JasonCole62) March 31, 2016
As is, Kaepernick is expected to make $11.9 million in 2016 (a cap hit of $15.9 million), so that would amount to nearly a $5 million pay cut — no small change, even for an NFL quarterback. And for the Broncos, there’s really no way of getting around that demand.
According to Spotrac, the Broncos currently have just $2.8 million in cap space, and once they sign their projected draft selections, they’ll be an estimated $3.4 million over the cap, making any move difficult, especially one of this magnitude. Now, the Broncos are still expected to part ways with Ryan Clady, which would clear up roughly $9 million in cap space, but even that would be cutting it close.
The 49ers have stated that they will only trade Kaepernick if they’re “blown away” by an offer, but the longer they wait, it may end up being the Broncos who will need to be “blown away.” They’ll need to be mighty sure that Kaepernick is the man for the job if they’re going to throw that kind of dough on the table. If not, it might just make more sense to ride with Mark Sanchez, Trevor Siemian and whatever rookie quarterback they select in next month’s draft.