5 reasons Broncos will not repeat as Super Bowl champions

4. The salary cap situation is tough

One of the reasons for the great parity in the NFL is the salary cap, which makes it difficult to repeat with all the roster turnover from year-to-year. Like so many recent champions, the Broncos are going to have a tough time keeping their entire team together, and won’t have a lot of room to make any additions.

While cap numbers aren’t official and can differ by source, Spotrac lists Denver as having just over $16.5 million in space to work with for now. That ranks 23rd in the NFL, and the situation could quickly get more difficult for the Broncos.

Denver is going to retain Miller, who is an unrestricted free agent, one way or another and it’s not going to be cheap. The Broncos may not want to dish out the $100 million contract Miller will command this offseason and instead opt to use the franchise tag, but that’s also going to carry a big cap hit for 2016.

If Peyton Manning does indeed retire, as many expect him to, the Broncos will free up $19 million. However, some of that will almost certainly go to unrestricted free agent Brock Osweiler, who is going to get a significant pay raise as Denver’s likely starting quarterback.

Between Miller and Osweiler, the Broncos will use up a chunk of the money they have available, making it difficult to retain other free agents or make any necessary additions. While 33-year-old DeMarcus Ware is still playing at a high level, re-negotiating his $11 million deal will be a priority for the Broncos this offseason.

There are some parallels to the 2013 Seattle Seahawks, who retained much of their core from a historically good defense but still had a few cap casualties. Denver is going to have a difficult salary cap situation, and that could be enough for another contender to overtake it in 2016.

Next: 3. They will likely lose some key defensive pieces