Elway And Terrell Receive Cash
The NFL has ordered Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen to pay $22 million to cover part of the deferred salaries of running back Terrell Davis and former quarterback John Elway.
The decision by commissioner Paul Tagliabue resolves a nearly year-long dispute over whether the Broncos could pay the amount whenever they wanted.
Bowlen apparently did not violate salary cap rules, however, by delaying the payments.
Tagliabue ruled last week that 75 percent of nearly $30 million in deferred money in the contracts of Davis and Elway had to be funded immediately, not according to the players' demand, as the Broncos had maintained. Davis was paid $9 million; Elway got the rest.
NFL rules state that any player salary greater than $1 million that is deferred more than a year must be funded immediately. The rule is meant to prevent teams from deferring too many salaries, then running out of money when it came time to pay.
The decision could have salary cap implications for the Broncos, though Bowlen said it will not affect the team's ability to give a multimillion-dollar signing bonus to its No. 1 pick in the April 15-16 draft.
"We knew that we could have to pay that money at any particular point in time, so we had it," Bowlen said. "It wasn't like we had to go out and get it. But we were asked for it one Friday, and we funded it the next Monday or Tuesday. It was just a question of who should be holding the money."
The Broncos' restructuring of Elway's contract had given the team short-term salary cap relief, but it added to the money the team owed him after he retired.
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