DENVER, COLORADO - DECEMBER 30: Quarterback Case Keenum #4 of the Denver Broncos plays the Los Angeles Chargers at Broncos Stadium at Mile High on December 30, 2018 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)

The Denver Broncos are set to eat more dead money on the salary cap than ever before in John Elway’s tenure. What’s the overall damage?

Denver Broncos general manager John Elway has done a great job through the years of not accumulating much dead money on the salary cap.

In 2018, however, he had to bite the bullet on a couple of bad investments.

Elway released Menelik Watson despite a pretty big blow in terms of dead cap. Watson counted just under $7 million against the Broncos’ cap in 2018 and will count $1.33 million against the cap in 2019.

Yikes.

The Broncos also ate some significant dead money when they released quarterback Paxton Lynch, who was still owed over $4.4 million on his rookie contract.

The Broncos are paying Lynch $1.27 million in 2019.

Because of some of these poor investments, along with a few others, Denver has one of the highest current dead money counts in the NFL at roughly $7.5 million. That’s about 10 times the amount Elway wants to pay, and it’s unfortunately just a fraction of what he’s about to have to pay to guys who aren’t on the roster.

The Broncos are going to be forced to release quarterback Case Keenum, who carries a dead money hit of $10 million. There’s no way the Broncos can get out of $3 million of that, which is a prorated bonus. They could get out of some of his base salary, as little as $930,000 and really as much as $7 million.

It would be a miracle if the Broncos were able to get out of paying Keenum the majority or all of his 2019 base salary, but it is possible.

Let’s look at a worst-case scenario for now.

At worst, the Broncos will have to pay Keenum $9.07 million in dead money.

The Broncos have also decided not to pick up Brandon Marshall’s contract option this year. That decision comes with a $4 million dead money hit (Marshall has a prorated signing bonus, $2 million in 2019, $2 million in 2020).

Just those two players alone will put the Broncos over $20 million in dead cap this year.

Beyond them, the Broncos could release Darian Stewart as a cap casualty, which would add another $2.8 million in dead cap.

The only other big-name veteran the Broncos could potentially release or trade is Emmanuel Sanders, who would add another $2.7 million in dead cap.

Here is an itemized list of players and their dead money hits for the Broncos:

Case Keenum: $10 million

Emmanuel Sanders: $2.687 million

Brandon Marshall: $4 million

Darian Stewart: $2.8 million

Total: $19.487 million

Total with current dead money figure: $27.067 million

This number is likely to make John Elway and Mike Sullivan vomit, but sometimes you have to make these kinds of sacrifices for the betterment of the team. I highly doubt Denver is releasing Emmanuel Sanders, so you can at least shave a little bit off that number.

Keenum’s dead money number decreases depending on how much he signs for with another team, and there will be demand for his services as a backup. The Broncos could recoup a decent percentage of that.

Even so, this will easily be the highest dead cap number under John Elway’s watch from investments he has made. It’s not something anyone will want to write home about but it’s the reality of the Broncos’ roster right now.

If they release all of these players, they would have over $46 million in cap space to work with. If they keep Sanders, that figure is roughly $36 million, which is enough to do some serious damage in free agency.