Elvis Dumervil cut by Denver Broncos after fax flub

With the clock ticking on a compromise, Elvis Dumervil agreed to accept a salary reduction from $12 million to $8 million for the 2013 season.

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So why is the pass rusher no longer property of the Denver Broncos? NFL.com's Jeff Darlington reported the Broncos released Dumervil just before Friday's 2 p.m. MT deadline for restructured contracts because the necessary paperwork for the deal wasn't filed in time.

The Denver Post's Mike Klis was the first to report the news.

The Broncos gave Dumervil's agent, Marty Magid, a 1 p.m. MT deadline to accept the deal, according to NFL.com's Albert Breer, but the team didn't hear from Dumervil's camp until 1:25 p.m.

The two sides had reached a verbal agreement with 35 minutes to spare before the NFL deadline, but Dumervil's agent failed to send the fax through on time, according to Darlington. In a bind at 1:59 p.m. MT, the team was forced to waive Dumervil rather than get stuck with paying the full $12 million.

"We had to protect ourselves," a Broncos source explained to Darlington.

With one of the fax machines apparently on the fritz, the Broncos' front office frantically attempted to get Dumervil's agent to send the paperwork through a more modern channel. Those efforts were in vain, leading a team source to tell Darlington the agent made a "colossal mistake."

The easy solution would be for Dumervil simply to re-sign a one-year, $8 million contract with the Broncos. It's not that simple, though. In releasing Dumervil, the Broncos now take a $4.89 million salary-cap hit, NFL.com's Ian Rapoport reported Friday.

Overall, they created a lot of cap room -- more than $7 million -- by releasing him, but the Broncos wind up having $4.89 million in "dead money" on the cap.

The gaffe has Elway and Co. "fuming," NFL Network's Michelle Beisner reported from the Broncos' facility. The Broncos' brass currently is trying to figure out the best course of action, according to Beisner.

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Now that Wes Welker's contract has gone through, cap implications will make it more challenging to get Dumervil back in the fold under the original agreement.

While Dumervil is stuck in limbo, this debaculous fiasco leaves us wondering why 1980s technology is still the communication method of choice in 2013.

In a league in which players have traded in their playbooks for iPads, the logical inference is that the fax machine should have gone the way of the passenger pigeon by now.

Perhaps the Dumervil debacle will spur changes that will allow his 2014 contract to be sent via cellphone.

Follow Chris Wesseling on Twitter @ChrisWesseling.