Jeff LegwoldJul 28, 2025, 02:57 PM ETCloseJeff Legwold covers the Denver Broncos at ESPN. He has covered the Broncos for more than 20 years and also assists with NFL draft coverage, joining ESPN in 2013. He has been a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Board of Selectors since 1999, too.
Jeff previously covered the Pittsburgh Steelers, Buffalo Bills and Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans at previous stops prior to ESPN.Follow on X
Jeff LegwoldJul 28, 2025, 02:57 PM ET
CloseJeff Legwold covers the Denver Broncos at ESPN. He has covered the Broncos for more than 20 years and also assists with NFL draft coverage, joining ESPN in 2013. He has been a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Board of Selectors since 1999, too.
Jeff previously covered the Pittsburgh Steelers, Buffalo Bills and Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans at previous stops prior to ESPN.Follow on X
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In the end, the “right time” for theDenver Broncosto lock up wide receiverCourtland Suttonfor the long term turned out to be the first Monday of training camp.
The Broncos and Sutton, a team captain, agreed to a four-year, $92 million extension that will run through the 2029 season, sources told ESPN. The deal includes $41 million in guarantees, multiple sources said, with the $14 million Sutton could have earned this season (a $13.5 million base salary and a $500,000 workout bonus) now fully guaranteed to go with $27 million in guarantees over the four years of the extension.
Sutton, who was in the final year of the four-year, $60.8 million deal he signed late in the 2021 season, had reported for training camp with the other Denver veterans last Tuesday and had participated in practices Wednesday through Saturday. It had appeared, however, that some concessions had been made while the two sides negotiated since Sutton did very little work in 11-on-11 team drills in those practices, including no team drill snaps in Saturday’s practice.
Coach Sean Payton said last week that there had been “good communication” between the team and Sutton’s representatives and had maintained throughout the offseason that a new deal for the receiver would happen at “the right time.” For his part, Sutton, who is the second-longest-tenured Denver player behind only tackleGarett Bolles, has repeatedly said he wanted to finish his career with the Broncos.
A year ago, Sutton, a second-round pick in the 2018 draft, stayed away from the voluntary portion of the team’s offseason work because he hoped a new deal was in the offing.
He did participate in the mandatory minicamp, and the Broncos added some performance incentives to his contract as training camp opened last July — an additional $1.5 million Sutton earned as he met them all.
Sutton and his representatives, multiple sources said earlier this offseason, had made it clear he did not want to play the coming season on his old deal.
Sutton finished 2024 with a career-best 81 receptions as quarterbackBo Nix’s favorite, and most-trusted, target, as his 1,081 yards and eight touchdowns were the second-highest totals of his career. But perhaps the most notable in all of the numbers was that Sutton was the player Nix was most willing to target in contested situations.
Sutton was tied withCincinnati Bengalswide receiverTee Higginsfor seventh in the league in tight-window targets — separation with the nearest defender of less than a yard when the ball arrived — and was the only Denver player among the league’s top 90 players in the category.
Nix has said he has “so much trust in Court. …
He’s going to be in the right spot and battle for everything to make a play. All of our guys battle, but Court is just so good.”
Source: Espnnfl
