With Broncos tackle Ryan Clady making it clear he won’t sign the franchise tender any time soon, there’s a chance Clady will exercise his right to wait until a few days before the start of the season to accept the offer and still earn the full amount of his $9.66 million guaranteed salary for 2013. Broncos V.P. of football operations John Elway realizes that this risk exists, and Elway said so on Friday’s Pro Football Talk.
“You know, it could happen,” Elway said. “I don’t think it’s the best thing for Ryan. I think for Ryan to be what he wants to do and what he wants to be as a football player is not good to sit out an offseason. Especially when you have a small window as a football player and how long you play in the league, to be able to sit back and sit out realizing what the situation is, I don’t think its advantageous to him or us so I’m hoping that doesn’t happen.”
The Broncos have yet to apply the franchise tag to Clady, but they undoubtedly will. Elway made it clear that a long-term package won’t be offered until Clady has recovered from recent surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff in his shoulder.
“I think we’ll wait and see how that comes out,” Elway said. “Obviously we don’t want to jump right in because that’s always, especially for a tackle, those shoulders are always tough and we’ll see how he comes out of it. But we don’t anticipate any problems with that. My understanding is the surgery went well and our training crew says that things look good so we don’t anticipate any problems but we’ll see how he comes out of it.”
The end result likely will be that Clady will remain a member of the Broncos. When he’s actually under contract once again remains to be seen.