Denver Broncos need to seriously up their offer to get Colin Kaepernick

John Elway's offer of $7 million a year for Colin Kaepernick is a ridiculously low number. It's essentially the same offer Robert Griffin III and Chase Daniel get. There are few people who would consider either of those guys a better option at quarterback than Kaepernick, so Elway might want to rethink his offer here.

Chad Brown joined Eric Goodman and Les Shapiro on The Afternoon Drive to discuss the offer on the table and Brown made a salient point of how the money that Elway is asking Kaepernick to leave on the table is in the $10-15 million over the span of the next several years.

Jason Fitzgerald of OverTheCap.com dug deeper into the analytics of a potential deal, noting that the Denver Broncos will need to seriously up their offer if they are going to actually close a deal for a trade with the San Francisco 49ers and Kaepernick. He suggested that the break even point is $9.83 million and if the Broncos offer something around that point Kaepernick should take it.

So to make the trade happen Denver either needs to up their offer or the 49ers are going to need to kick in an added $3 million or more to make it happen. I don’t see much of a reason for San Francisco to do that if they truly want Kaepernick. Even if Denver offers their first round pick I have a hard time seeing the logic in paying $3 million to obtain the 31st pick in the draft who they will have to guarantee somewhere around $7 million for the next few years.

The Afternoon Drive also chatted with Michael Pritchard regarding this and he noted that it makes little sense for Kaepernick to take a pay cut. The team that doesn't want him has already guaranteed his contract, so why would he go play for a team that does want him for nearly half the guaranteed money?

It's an interesting conundrum that I think can only be resolved by Elway. He is going to have to decide at some point whether their offer is truly the right number. My hope is that he lowballed Kaepernick to see if he could get a deal out of him, but that is clearly not going to happen, so now he should up the offer to find some middle ground with Kaepernick.

At the of the day, I believe Kaepernick has proven ability to return to his explosive big-play self in Denver. Heck. I think he'll do it in San Francisco too if given the chance. I just hope he doesn't get that chance. How about you, Broncos Country?