How will Broncos approach Ja’Quan McMillian’s restricted free agency?

Ja’Quan McMillian is in many ways the central figure in Denver’s defense.

He’s not the group’s best player — that’s fellow cornerback Pat Surtain II — nor does he relay the calls from coordinator Vance Joseph. Nonetheless, the Broncos’ nickel is in the middle of just about everything.

He’s responsible for the communication between the middle of the field and the perimeter. The way the secondary handles motion, bunched and stacked formations and more runs through him.

That’s just before the snap. In 2025, he built on his knack as one of the group’s best playmakers, accumulating four sacks, five tackles for a loss and making the biggest play of the Broncos’ season with a diving interception of Josh Allen in overtime of Denver’s 33-30 divisional round win over Buffalo.

“You’ll go five, 10 years before you see a turnover like that one,” head coach Sean Payton said that night.

McMillian, somewhat quietly, is also at the center of the Broncos’ offseason decision-making process.

Undrafted in 2022, McMillian won’t hit the open market, but he is a restricted free agent.

That puts Denver in a strong position to keep him, but also means McMillian is set for a major raise and perhaps a top-of-the-market extension.

“Best in the world,” Denver inside linebacker Alex Singleton, himself an impending free agent, said after McMillian’s game-saving pick against the Bills. “Someone should pay that dude $16 million a year and it still won’t be enough. He’s the best nickel in the world.”

Singleton would be a good agent. Though nickel has become a premium position in the NFL, the top of the market at the position is currently around $13 million per season. Some hybrid players check in between $14-18 million and from there it’s the upper echelon of the cornerback market— Surtain territory.

The Broncos have essentially three options: They can try to work out an extension before free agency begins, they can put a restricted free agent tender on McMillian — then either let him play at that number or continue working on extension — or they can trade him.

McMillian’s agent, Deryk Gilmore, told The Post that he thinks an extension this spring makes sense.

“He’s a proven guy, he’s come in and he’s battled through,” Gilmore said. “They’ve drafted people over him and he’s never complained. He’s embraced the challenge and risen. … He loves it there. It’s a great fit. It’s all stuff that we all know.”

If an extension isn’t completed by mid-March, Gilmore said he thinks the most likely outcome is a second-round tender for McMillian.

There are four RFA tenders: first round, second round, original round and right of first refusal. Since McMillian went undrafted, the original round is out of the equation. Right of first refusal makes little sense because it would allow other teams to do the negotiating with McMillian without the potential cost of having to part with draft capital.

The RFA tender amounts will be finalized once the NFL’s official salary cap for 2026 is set in the coming weeks, but OvertheCap currently projects the second-round tender at $5.81 million and a first-round tender at $8.11 million. Other teams can try to sign a player who has been given a first or second-round tender, but Denver would have the right to match contract terms or opt not to match and take the commensurate draft pick from the signing team.

It’s become uncommon for players to receive and actually play on a first-round tender, though Payton and New Orleans gave Taysom Hill one in 2020 ahead of free agency before eventually working out an extension with him in April of that year.

The Broncos have used second-round tenders on four players since 2020 — OL Elijah Wilkinson (2020), Tim Patrick (2021), LB Alexander Johnson (2021) and OLB Malik Reed (2022). All four signed the tender but went different directions from there. Patrick got an mid-season extension. Denver traded Reed to Pittsburgh at the end of training camp in 2022. Johnson and Wilkinson each were injured during the season and ended up with other teams.

Broncos GM George Paton wouldn’t say exactly what the Broncos’ plan for McMillian was during his postseason news conference, but he raved about the defensive back’s growth.

“I remember his first year, we started him outside against the Chargers in the last game of the year,” Paton said last month. “And I’m just like, ‘Oh man, he’s 5-9, he’s going to play outside against his receivers.’ He played a great game, and you’re like, ‘Wow, maybe we have something here.’ Then he’s just gotten better, in the run game, pass game.

“We’re going to work through that as a staff in that (roster) deep dive and kind of go through that and just keep that in-house.”

Joseph has talked extensively about McMillian’s importance to Denver’s defense — he said last month that McMillian is at his best when “things are hard and dark” — and teammates have similarly high opinions. Safety Talanoa Hufanga knew some about McMillian before arriving in Denver last spring and thought, “this guy is good, he can play, he’s a dog.”