Broncos sign WR Aaron Burbridge, waive WR Andre Holmes

As the march to Free Agency begins, the Broncos made their first move to free up cap space.

By Taylor Kothe@tkothe_nfl Jan 25, 2019, 4:30am MST

The Broncos’ season is over and with the Senior Bowl going, the offseason is in full swing. It’s the time of the year that NFL teams begin making changes to their rosters to position themselves for the new league year and the free agency frenzy that arrives with it.

The Broncos made their first cap-saving move yesterday by waiving WR Andre Holmes. If you’re not familiar with the name, it’s because he wasn’t a Bronco for very long. Denver claimed Holmes off of waivers from Buffalo on December 5th, in the wake of losing Emmanuel Sanders for the season. Holmes then appeared in 3 games in orange & blue and recorded one catch for 5 yards before suffering a high ankle sprain vs the Raiders in Week 16 that ended his season.

Unfortunately for Holmes, in the end his biggest contribution to the 2019 Broncos ended up being the cap space they could get back by moving on from him. Holmes was set to count for $1,450,000 against the cap in 2019, but none of it was guaranteed. So the Broncos didn’t incur any dead money with this move, and increased their available cap space to around $41.5M.

As one WR exited, another enters. The Broncos signed Aaron Burbridge to a future contract yesterday, and presumably he’ll compete for a depth role or practice squad spot on the roster this summer. The 2016 6th round pick for the San Francisco 49ers spent last season on the Niners’ practice squad after missing the entire 2017 season due to a badly timed hamstring injury. In his rookie year, the former Michigan State Spartan recorded 7 receptions for 88 yards in 3 starts, and was active the other 13 games.

It looks like the Broncos are ready to get into the business of roster building for 2019. With several cap-heavy veterans with iffy futures on the roster, at this point we’re just waiting for the next domino to fall. This is just one of the first of many changes this offseason will bring.