Broncos Predicted to Trade for $40 Million ‘Swiss Army Knife’

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Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton and New Orleans Saints tight end Taysom Hill.

For Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton, a familiar face from his past might be the key to helping lift his team’s offense to another level in 2025.

ESPN’s Benjamin Solak believes the New Orleans Saints will be forced to part ways with versatile offensive star Taysom Hill this offseason and look for a trade destination, opening the door for the 8-year veteran to possibly finish out his career playing for his old head coach.

“I’m not sure what exactly happens with Taysom Hill, the 35-year-old do-it-all playmaker who is due to hit the 2025 cap for $18 million next season, which will be the fourth-biggest tight end cap hit in football,” Solak wrote. “I expect the Saints to try to trade him (to the Broncos, as nobody else would really be interested) while modifying his contract to create cap relief. ”

While Hill is listed as a tight end, it’s basically for salary cap classification purposes only. He’s spent his career as a hybrid quarterback/running back/wide receiver/tight end/special teams ace who saw his potentially fully unlocked in 5 seasons playing for Payton in New Orleans.

While a trade could happen to the Broncos, it’s more likely the team gets a chance to sign him as a free agent. The Saints could designate him as a post-June 1 release in order to save $10 million on the salary cap in 2025.

That could set up the Broncos to get Hill on a prove-it deal — something along the lines of a 1-year, $1.5 million contract laced with incentives that could double or triple its value if Hill delivers.

“The Saints have a projected (salary) cap of nearly -$80 million for the 2025 season which means they are going to have to find ways to clear the books, and the easiest way to do that is to move on from veteran contracts that are set to take big chunks of change away from the pot next season,” wrote The Sporting News’ Sean Labar on January 7.

How Hill Became NFL’s Signature ‘Swiss Army Knife’

Hill becoming the NFL’s signature “Swiss Army Knife” player is due almost in total to Payton’s ingenuity as a football coach.

Hill was an exciting but oft-injured quarterback in 5 seasons at BYU, where he suffered 4 season-ending injuries then went undrafted in 2017. Because he served his Mormon mission right out of high school, Hill was already 27 years old when he played in his first NFL game in 2017 with the Saints. Hill quickly developed into a special teams star before Payton began finding larger roles for him in the offense in 2018.

In terms of having a player who could do almost anything on a football field, Hill is almost unmatched over the last 20 years. In 105 career games he has 3,809 all-purpose yards and 55 total touchdowns — 33 rushing touchdowns, 11 receiving touchdowns and 11 passing touchdowns.

Hill signed a 2-year, $16.3 million contract extension in 2020 and followed that with a 4-year, $40 million contract extension in November 2021.

Seeing What Hill Still Has Left in Tank

While Hill’s age is a concern at 35 years old, so is a season-ending ACL injury suffered in Week 13 of the 2024 regular season.

On the flip side of those concerns, it’s worth noting Hill’s usage rate had never been very high until 2024, when he had 465 yards of total offense and 6 touchdowns in just 8 games. Hill’s highest offensive usage rate was in 2022, when he played in 56 percent of the Saints’ offensive snaps, and he’s averaged just 31.6 percent of his team’s offensive snap counts over 8 seasons.