The Denver Broncos have until 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday to reach a long-term deal with Demaryius Thomas, but it’s going to be hard for the star receiver and his team to hammer out a contract without speaking to each other.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports that the Broncos “have not exchanged proposals or had any dialogue” with Thomas in over a month. It’s unclear when the Broncos are said to have offered Thomas “substantially more” than $12 million per season, but that number could have been floated around much earlier this offseason.
Johnson, like Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant, wants to be the highest-paid receiver in the game. In order to grant him that wish, the Broncos would have to pay him more than $16 million a year, which is what Calvin Johnson makes. The second-highest paid receiver in the NFL, Mike Wallace, makes roughly $12 million a year.
As NFL Network’s Albert Breer notes, Johnson had much more leverage in 2012 than Bryant and Thomas have now. The Detroit Lions star was scheduled to count $21 million against the cap for the 2012 season before he signed his extension. Also, the franchise tag price for the 2013 season would have been north of $25 million, if the Lions let it get that far. The franchise tender for Bryant and Thomas is $12.8 million.
One bargaining chip both Thomas and Bryant could be sitting on is the possibility of collusion charges against their respective teams. The NFL Players Association is reportedly working to determine if the Broncos and Cowboys had discussions about contracts for their two star receivers to assure that the market is set well below what Johnson makes.
Bryant has already made his intentions clear with this tweet, while Thomas has said very little publicly. At the end of the day, their situations are virtually identical.
