Broncos place franchise tag on Justin Simmons

According to multiple reports, the Denver Broncos have placed the franchise tag on Justin Simmons. For safeties and a projected salary cap figure of around $200 million, this will put the one-year tag worth $11.545 million for Simmons.

That is likely to change as John Elway has repeated spoke of using the tag to get a long-term deal in place for Justin Simmons.

“We want him back,” Elway said during his end of the year press conference. “You know the options there. Before we came down, I talked to Justin and said, ‘You know what, we want you back.’ He’s a great football player, but he’s a better man. What he does outside of this building and what’s done in Denver has been tremendous. Just the type of guys he is. These are the type of guys that we want on this football team. Obviously, we have the franchise option there, but we’d like to get something done with Justin for the long term.”

Simmons knows this is part of the process and realizes that the tag option is often used by Elway to get a long-term deal in place prior to the start of that same season. Broncos Wire noted that Elway had previous tagged Matt Prater (2012), Ryan Clady (2013), Demaryius Thomas (2015), and Von Miller (2016) before getting them signed to a long-term deal after tagging them.

“Anytime that’s it’s been used, long-term deals have been done,” Simmons said in response to Elway’s franchise tag comments above. “Either way I’ve looked at it, it’s a blessing either way. In my opinion, if a team wants you, you’ll be here. It’ll be a blessing either way. I’ve said it all season long, it’s no shocker that I want to stay. I love the defense. It works for me; I think I make it work just as well. I think it’s a good relationship. With that being said, it just has to work out. There’s no hiding that I want it to work out. I just hope it does. It’ll be exciting regardless. Whatever happens, I know it’s all on the Lord’s will. If it does happen, I’ll just further his kingdom, so it’ll be good.”

This is a good move for the Broncos as Simmons has shown he is a rising star in the NFL and pairing him with Kareem Jackson has been a good start to solidifying the back end of their secondary for the immediate future. The next deadline in this process will be July 15, 2020. That is when a long-term deal must be in place or Simmons will play the 2020 season under the one-year tag.