With Super Bowl 50 finally upon us, we'll take a quick look at how the Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos matchup, financially. We've broken down the two teams in a variety of ways, including: Projected Starting Lineup Totals, a fully filterable Player Comparison tool (broken down by position, roster type, or money type), a visual look at how each team is spending their money Positionally, and a look at players from each team set to become unrestriced free agents next month.
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We've compiled the cumulative 2015 Cap $, Average Annual Salary, and Career Earnings for the projected Super Bowl starting lineups. Somewhat shockingly, the Broncos and Panthers starting lineup pay is extremely close across the board, including just $2M in combined avg. salary, and $4M in combined 2015 cap.
DEN Cap $ |
CAR Cap $ |
DEN Avg. Salary |
CAR Avg. Salary |
DEN Career Earnings |
CAR Career Earnings |
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Proj. Starters | $99,650,056 | $95,284,224 | $110,150,128 | $108,000,084 | $591,810,030 | $577,480,110 |
Starting Off. | $51,921,883 | $45,925,825 | $52,007,841 | $51,597,794 | $374,535,591 | $221,620,654 |
Starting Def. | $44,868,173 | $45,578,729 | $53,784,954 | $52,757,620 | $206,109,668 | $345,182,337 |
Use this interactive tool to filter each starting lineup by position (Offense, QB, WR, Defensive line, etc), money type (Cap, AAV, Earnings), and roster type (53-Man Roster, Starting lineup). We've sorted the teams by position to show a player's direct comparison.
Notable Points
- Only 6 starters carry a $10M+ average salary.
- 12 players carry a cap hit less than $1M.
- Peyton Manning's $246M in earnings is $19M more than the entire Panthers' starting offense has earned in their careers to date.
Cap Hit | Denver Broncos | Position | Carolina Panthers | Cap Hit |
---|
Quarterbacks
The Broncos hold a slight edge here, allocating $17.5M to Peyton Manning, and $1.1M toward Brock Osweiler's final rookie contract year. Newton accounts for $13M in 2015, but jumps to $19.5M in 2016.
Running Backs
Jonathan Stewart's $8.3M cap figure ranked 5th among all running backs in 2015, and is $7.35M more than any other running back figure in the Super Bowl.
Wide Receivers
Denver holds a huge lead here, with $22.6M allocated to their 6 active receivers. The Panthers have an astonishly low $6.2M cap dollars allocated to their 6 wideouts.
Tight Ends
Fairly even here, with Denver spreading out $7.4M fairly evenly among their three veterans, with Greg Olsen accounting for $6.3M of the Panthers' $8.1M TE cap dollars.
Offensive Linemen
Denver has 10 active offensive linemen, but just $13.3M cap dollars spent on them. Panthers' center Ryan Kalil accounts for $11.795M alone.
Defensive Linemen
Quite the opposite on this side of the ball. Carolina has a whopping $29.4M cap dollars spent to their 9 active defensive linemen. The Broncos carry just 6, and they accounted for just $9.2M against the 2015 cap.
$18.3M of the Broncos' $24M lineback cap dollars goes to Von Miller ($9.754M) and DeMarcus Ware ($8.6M). While the duo of Thomas Davis ($7.65M) and Luke Kuechly ($6.6M) accounts for 81% of the Panthers' LB cap.
Secondary
The Broncos have made it a priority to bolster their secondary in recent years, and their cap shows it. Their defensive backs account for $22.3M this seasons, compared to just $7.7M from the Panthers.
Special Teams
The Broncos have gone cheap on the kicker ($510k) and pricey on the punter ($2.35M), while the Panthers have done the opposite, spending $3.1M on Graham Gano, and $679k on Brad Nortman.
» View Positional Spending Breakdowns for all 2016 NFL teams
Denver Broncos | 2015 Cap Hit | Carolina Panthers | 2015 Cap Hit | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Malik Jackson (DT, 26) | $1,595,403 | Josh Norman (CB, 26) | $1,591,750 | |
Brock Osweiler (QB, 25) | $1,118,944 | Brad Nortman (P, 25) | $679,670 | |
Russell Okung (LT, 27) | $7,280,000 | Paul Soliai (DT, 27) | $4,400,000 | |
Danny Trevathan (ILB, 25) | $1,568,018 | Gino Gradkowski (C, 25) | $1,542,000 | |
Donald Stephenson (LT, 27) | $844,375 | Roman Harper (SS, 27) | $1,800,000 | |
David Bruton (SS, 28) | $1,650,000 | Cortland Finnegan (CB, 28) | $172,058 | |
Evan Mathis (G, 34) | $2,921,875 | Mike Scifres (P, 34) | $4,347,500 | |
Jared Crick (DE, 26) | $1,639,875 | Fernando Velasco (G, 26) | $550,588 | |
Ryan Harris (LT, 30) | $1,420,000 | Michael Griffin (FS, 30) | $8,100,000 | |
Vernon Davis (TE, 32) | $2,477,941 | Kyle Love (DT, 32) | $745,000 | |
Mark Sanchez (QB, 29) | $3,750,000 | Brandon Boykin (CB, 29) | $1,542,000 | |
Britton Colquitt (P, 30) | $2,350,000 | Leonard Johnson (CB, 30) | $155,294 | |
Antonio Smith (DE, 34) | $2,000,000 | Nate Chandler (LT, 34) | $1,150,000 | |
Andre Caldwell (WR, 30) | $1,550,000 | Ryan Wendell (C, 30) | $2,400,000 | |
Jordan Norwood (WR, 29) | $745,000 | Stevie Brown (SS, 29) | $0 | |
Garrett Graham (TE, 29) | $3,921,875 | Amini Silatolu (G, 29) | $1,570,897 | |
Omar Bolden (FS, 27) | $778,607 | Mike Scifres (P, 27) | $4,347,500 | |
Lerentee McCray (DE, 25) | $515,668 | Dwan Edwards (DT, 25) | $1,750,000 | |
Ronnie Hillman (RB, 24) | $942,708 | Jerricho Cotchery (WR, 24) | $1,950,000 | |
Henry Melton (DT, 29) | $3,750,000 | Tyronne Green (G, 29) | $585,000 | |
Billy Winn (DE, 26) | $1,542,000 | Frank Alexander (DE, 26) | $760,272 | |
Kyle Williams (WR, 27) | $348,000 | Stephen Hill (WR, 27) | $594,500 | |
Dekoda Watson (OLB, 27) | $43,823 | Arthur Miley (DE, 27) | $323,000 | |
Shiloh Keo (SS, 28) | $137,647 | Keyarris Garrett (WR, 28) | $0 | |
Brandian Ross (CB, 26) | $38,823 | Jalen Simmons (RB, 26) | $0 | |
John Phillips (TE, 28) | $585,000 | Jenson Stoshak (WR, 28) | $0 | |
Marlon Brown (WR, 24) | $572,726 | Shaquille Richardson (CB, 24) | $0 | |
Louis Vasquez (G, 28) | $6,250,000 | Avius Capers (WR, 28) | $0 | |
Owen Daniels (TE, 33) | $2,750,000 | Laron Byrd (WR, 33) | $0 | |
Garrett Graham (TE, 29) | $3,921,875 | Willie Smith (LT, 29) | $0 | |
Henry Melton (DT, 29) | $3,750,000 | Stevie Brown (SS, 29) | $0 | |
Austin Davis (QB, 26) | $966,666 | Swayze Waters (P, 26) | $0 | |
Tyler Polumbus (LT, 30) | $481,764 | Trenton Robinson (FS, 30) | $0 | |
Richard Gordon (TE, 28) | $137,647 | Ray Drew (DE, 28) | $0 | |
Brandian Ross (CB, 26) | $38,823 | Ras-I Dowling (CB, 26) | $0 | |
Josh Bush (SS, 26) | $194,117 | David Foucault (T, 26) | $0 | |
Sam Brenner (C, 25) | $210,000 | Rakim Cox (DE, 25) | $0 | |
Toben Opurum (DE, 25) | $25,588 | Matthew Masifilo (G, 25) | $0 | |
Nick Kasa (TE, 25) | $0 | Marcus Lucas (TE, 25) | $0 | |
Jace Davis (WR, 24) | $0 | |||
B.J. Lowery (CB, 24) | $0 | |||
DeVier Posey (WR, 25) | $0 | |||
Will Johnson (P, ) | $0 | |||
Dwayne Norman (S, 22) | $0 | |||
Darrion Weems (RT, 27) | $0 | |||
Cameron Jefferson (T, 23) | $0 | |||
Mathu Gibson (G, ) | $0 | |||
Phil Taylor (DT, 27) | $0 | |||
Antonio Glover (S, ) | $0 | |||
Nathan Theus (LS, ) | $0 | |||
Durron Neal (WR, ) | $0 | |||
Calvin Heurtelou (DT, 22) | $0 | |||
Lars Hanson (T, ) | $0 | |||
Frank Shannon (OLB, ) | $0 | |||
Lars Koht (DT, ) | $0 | |||
John Tidwell (S, ) | $0 | |||
Kyle Roberts (T, 24) | $0 | |||
George Uko (DT, 24) | $0 |