On Friday evening, the Broncos released a statement from executive vice president of football operations John Elway detailing the organization’s version of events that left defensive end Elvis Dumervil without a job -- at least for now -- after the team claimed they didn’t get the necessary documentation for a contract restructuring in time.
Elway’s statement:
“For the last week, Elvis Dumervil and his agent were aware of our desire to change the financial terms of his contract to ensure he would remain a Denver Bronco. After numerous conversations with both Elvis and his representative, we submitted our final contract proposal to Elvis today at 11 a.m. MDT. Based on our previous discussions, we believed our offer was fair and were hopeful it would resolve this matter.
“Due to the procedural elements that were involved in executing the new proposal, we imposed a 1 p.m. MDT deadline for a decision, one hour before the NFL’s waiver wire at 2 p.m. MDT. Our deadline was clearly communicated to Elvis’ representative.
“At 1 p.m. MDT, we were informed by Elvis’ representative that he declined our offer. We then prepared Elvis’ termination notice to officially file his release with the NFL office.
“At approximately 1:25 p.m. MDT, however, we were informed that Elvis changed his mind and accepted the same contract we proposed nearly two-and-a-half hours earlier. Although we expressed our concern regarding the time constraints, we were assured that the signed documents would be submitted to us before the league’s waiver deadline.
“We did not receive the documents from Elvis by the league’s deadline and were forced to release him shortly before 2 p.m. MDT.
“Due to this situation, there are now salary cap implications associated with this transaction that we must consider with regard to potentially re-signing Elvis. At this moment, we are discussing all of our free-agency options to determine what’s best for the Denver Broncos.”
Marty Magid, Dumervil’s agent, told his side of the story to USA Today‘s Mike Garafolo. Magid told USA Today that Denver had changed part of the contract, which was one of the multiple factors that led to the fax coming too late for Denver to execute the deal, the agent said.
Rarely does a deal unspool like this in public fashion, and the outcome is something PFT’s Mike Florio pins on both sides.