Fangio on A.J. Bouye's Future Standing With Broncos: 'We'll Just Have to See'

The Denver Broncos suffered yet another personnel hit this week when news of cornerback A.J. Bouye's six-game suspension hit the wire. The team's No. 1 corner appealed the NFL's disciplinary action, but when it comes to performance-enhancing drug infractions, the league takes little heed to player protest.

The NFL denied Bouye's appeal and did not lessen the number of games he'll have to serve.

In the league's view, the players are accountable for anything they put in their bodies and if ever a supplement is in question, the NFL is an open book to any questions from its players. Bouye may have trusted the wrong guy, but he ultimately has no one to blame but himself as he could have contacted the league to ascertain whether the supplement in question was truly approved or not.

Instead, he took the risk and it came back to haunt him — and the Broncos. Vic Fangio's defense is now down all three of its top cornerbacks with Bryce Callahan going on injured reserve last week and Essang Bassey headed there this week.

Fangio might not exactly be scraping the bottom of the barrel because Michael Ojemudia, although he is a rookie, was a third-round pick and has played quite well at times this year and De'Vante Bausby has experience in the scheme and has shined anytime the Broncos have called his number. As it pertains to Bouye, though, his six-game suspension coming on the heels of a season in which he missed so much time due to injury leads to multiple questions about his future.

Namely, will he still be a Bronco in 2021? Bouye is under contract next year as the Broncos inherited his $67.5 million deal from the Jacksonville Jaguars signed back in 2017.

2021 is the last year of Bouye's deal and he's set to earn a $13M base salary. The Broncos, however, can cut him with zero dead money on the salary cap and have $13,375,000 in savings, according to Over The Cap.

Considering that he'll have only appeared in seven games in Year 1 as a Bronco — thanks to a shoulder injury suffered in Week 1, a concussion in Week 7, and now this suspension — there's reason to speculate whether the team will bother riding out his contract year. Bouye will serve four of the six-game suspension this year and will have to open next season with the other two.

Let's see (shall we?) if we can divine the team's current mood on Bouye's future by what head coach Vic Fangio (Bouye's biggest fan) had to say about it on Wednesday. Fangio was asked whether the Broncos still hold Bouye in as high of a regard as they did when he was acquired via trade and whether he can bounce back in 2021.

“He did have a choppy season," Fangio said of Bouye. "I think the injuries played a part in it. I think he got hurt in the first half of the first game, then missed five or six games, came back, got hurt during that game, missed the following game. I thought he was—these last couple games, he was starting to play better."

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Bouye did improve the last couple of weeks with actual time on task. But can Bouye bounce back next year? Fangio's reply was ambivalent.

"We'll just have to see, but it was a rough season for him with the injuries interrupting his availability and play, and now having to deal with the PED suspension,” Fangio said.

In coach-speak, "We'll just have to see" is lingo for "all bets are off" — at least, that's how I interpret it. Bouye's future in Denver is now very cloudy and unless he finished the 2020 season with aplomb, it was always going to be.

The six-game suspension only exacerbates it but the Broncos can't afford to pay a No. 1 corner top dollar and not have him on the field. The team knew that Bouye had some injury issues on his NFL resume when the Broncos gave up a fourth-round pick to acquire him from Jacksonville but the hope was he could shake them in Denver.

Alas, that didn't happen. And although he improved his play from Weeks 10-13, his performance when he was on the field wasn't of the 'lockdown' variety. And now he's suspended.

Suffice to say, it doesn't bode well for Bouye's future in Denver especially as he'll be crossing the dreaded 30 age mark next year. Depending on how the Broncos view the quarterback position coming out of 2020, it's hard to see the team prioritizing any position more than cornerback in the first round of next spring's NFL draft.

Follow Chad on Twitter @ChadNJensen and @MileHighHuddle.