The Broncos and Ty Warren are not seeing eye to eye on the team’s attempt to cut the veteran defensive lineman’s salary.
Warren is scheduled to make $4 million this year, in the second half of the two-year, $8 million contract he signed with the team last season. Mike Klis of the Denver Post reports that the Broncos approached Warren about taking a pay cut to something in the range of $1 million or $1.5 million, and that Warren balked.
Realistically, it’s hard to see Warren getting much more than $1.5 million if he were to hit the open market. Although he was once an All-Pro, he’s now 31 years old and hasn’t played since the end of the 2009 season: He missed all of 2010 with a hip injury and all of 2011 with a triceps injury. A player on the wrong side of 30 who’s coming off two straight missed seasons isn’t going to make a lot of money.
But if Warren wants to find out what he can make on the open market he’s well within his rights to tell the Broncos to pay him his salary or release him. If he does take that hard line, the Broncos will surely release him.
Early this offseason the Broncos convinced another veteran defensive lineman, Kevin Vickerson, to agree to cut his pay from $2.25 million to $1.2 million. That’s the only reason Vickerson stayed in Denver, and if Warren won’t take a pay cut of his own, he’ll be gone by the start of training camp.