The Denver Broncos have re-signed defensive tackle DeShawn Williams to a one-year deal, according to the team’s official Twitter account.
Williams also posted a short video on Instagram on Thursday, March 17, indicating that he will return to the Broncos.
Over the past two seasons, Williams has started 19 games and recorded 76 combined tackles, five tackles for loss, and three sacks.
ALL the latest Broncos news straight to your inbox! Join the Heavy on Broncos newsletter here!
Williams Used to Work at an Amazon Warehouse
Williams’s NFL journey is inspiring. He went undrafted in 2015, and he was signed by the Cincinnati Bengals. Williams appeared in four games for the Bengals in 2016.
He was then waived in 2017. He bounced around the league and was on a number of practice squads. In his career, Williams has been cut 10 times.
In 2019, he was working at an Amazon warehouse. In an article, Nick Kosmider of The Athletic wrote about Williams’s experience working at Amazon.
In December 2019, Williams took a job at an Amazon warehouse in Aurora, not far from the Broncos’ training facility. He drove a truck, lifting “all kinds of heavy stuff.” Williams would work out from 5 to 8 a.m. every day, fueling whatever flicker of his NFL dream still existed. Then he would work from noon to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday. Some days he would work double shifts. He worked holidays. Worked on his birthday. Worked on Sundays as former teammates were taking the field.
Williams finally got another NFL opportunity. In 2020, Williams made the Broncos’ practice squad.
He was eventually promoted to the active roster, and he played against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on September 27, 2020. It was his first regular-season game in nearly four years.
Despite being cut 10 times, Williams persevered, and it paid off.
An Updated Look at the Broncos’ Cap Situation
The Broncos recently signed offensive tackle Tom Compton to a one-year deal, but the financial details were not announced at the time.
Well, the full details are finally available. According to Spotrac, Compton will have a base salary of $1.595 million. He also has a $400,000 signing bonus and a potential $255,000 roster bonus ($15,000 per game active).
Overall, he will carry a cap hit of only $2.25 million, which ranks 57th among offensive tackles.
At the moment, the Broncos have approximately $9.2 million in available cap space per Spotrac. However, they still have plenty of options, if they want to open up more cap space.
According to Over the Cap, the Broncos can potentially open up to $55.9 million in additional space through simple contract restructures, which is the second-highest in the league.
In addition, they could include NLTBE (Not Likely to Be Earned) incentives in any contract offer. Incentives are judged as either NLTBE or LTBE (Likely to Be Earned) based on a player’s performance from the previous season.
If a player achieves their NLTBE incentive, it counts against the following season’s salary cap. So, including NLTBE incentives in any potential contract offer would not affect Denver’s cap space for this season.
Comments
Broncos Re-Sign Defensive Tackle to 1-Year Deal: Report