Inside the Denver Broncos decisions on cut-down day

**Ryan Koenigsberg** (0:00)
DNVR Broncos Podcast, RK and Hank with you today on a Monday. Obviously, a news filled day and really 24 hours around the NFL. Shout out to everyone who tuned into the emergency show, breaking down the roster yesterday. And we have some more information, some more news, some more things to talk about. I got to give my opinions. Yes.
So we got a lot to talk about today. Just us.
Just us. We're going to fill this show up with tons of good information. So we start with news related to Jonathon Cooper. We did hear, I guess it was yesterday or was it Saturday, one of those days that he was going to be placed on the commissioners exempt list. We can get into what that means and then also the news regarding his case.

**Henry Chisholm** (0:51)
Yeah. So we'll start with that. Commissioners exempt list means he basically doesn't count against the Broncos roster. He's not allowed to practice. He's not allowed to play in games, differs from a suspension in that he's allowed in the facility, just can't participate in those things.
But in a lot of ways, it's similar to a suspension, but just like a temporary purgatory type thing while the league figures out what to do with him, which will depend quite a bit on what the legal system decides what to do with him. So this morning he appeared in court. He pleaded not guilty to all of the charges, and the trial date is set for November 10th, 12th, and 13th. So a couple of months away, which is pretty normal amount of time in the future. I know it sounds like a long time away because we're looking at this through a football context. But I would imagine the NFL won't take him off the exempt list until all of this gets settled. And the only other note there is that I think in the US, one percent of criminal cases wind up going to trial. The rest have charges dropped or a plea deal or whatever. So I would still be surprised if you wind up with an actual trial.
And especially in a case like this where you need a cooperative witness to go forward with it and all those sorts of things. But it does seem like now that you're through today with the arraignment, prosecution and Jonathon Cooper's legal team can kind of start talking through what their options are.

**Ryan Koenigsberg** (2:18)
And while this has been kind of like a roller coaster situation, I would say this was always the most likely situation is that Jonathon Cooper wasn't going to be playing for the Broncos in week one. It kind of took a turn there when he showed up at training camp and it was business as usual from that standpoint. But you know whether he was going to be cut, which is kind of what we originally thought, or suspended or placed on this list until likely eventually suspended.
We saw this coming I guess. My question is will they do like a quote unquote time served thing if he misses the first four weeks of the season, something gets settled and they're like, okay well this was going to be a six game suspension, so then we'll just do it two more.

**Henry Chisholm** (3:08)
I would think so. So I would think that that's the way that they would do it. But the only caveat is right now, he's suspended with pay.
So under normal suspension, he would forfeit all of those game checks. But when he's on the exempt list, he still gets the game check because he isn't technically suspended. So the league could look at that and say like, yes, you didn't get to play in the games, which hurts your team and you in some way, but also you still got all the same money. So he didn't really feel the effect that most guys feel from this.

**Ryan Koenigsberg** (3:38)
Could he like, again, just ask, could they agree to like donate that money to charity?

**Henry Chisholm** (3:44)
You would think so or like, could you get through this and the NFL says, we're actually just going to find you? And it'd be a massive find that's worth, like if he misses six games before this happens, then it's worth six of 17 game checks. And for a guy making almost $20 million a year, like that's five, 10 million. Yeah, that's pretty crazy.

**Ryan Koenigsberg** (4:04)
Okay.
Before training camp started, we had a lot of conversations about Jonah Ellis versus Q Robinson, who's going to start at that position. Any thoughts on that now that we have, you know, a full camp and preseason under our belt?