NFL Trade Rumors: Broncos Willing to Deal Orton to Rival Raiders

I was reading an interesting article from Mike Klis in The Denver Post about why the Broncos are ready and willing and wanting to trade Brandon Lloyd when I got to the end and saw a very interesting tidbit.

Klis wrote,

"

The Broncos are also expected to monitor whether freshly demoted quarterback Kyle Orton draws interest from the Oakland Raiders after they lost starter Jason Campbell for an extended period. Campbell suffered a broken collarbone in the Raiders' 24-17 win against the Cleveland Browns.

Although the Raiders are their most-heated rival in the AFC West, the Broncos would be willing to give up Orton in return for a draft pick and relief from the estimated $5 million left on his salary.

"

This is pretty shocking news and it would be wild to see two teams that hate each other as much as these AFC West teams do make a trade, especially to considerably help out the Raiders.

The two teams have traded just once since 1993, when the Broncos gave Gerard Warren to the Raiders for a fifth-round pick in 2007.

A deal between the two rivals does make perfect sense at this point in time though.

Oakland direly needs a veteran quarterback who could get up to speed on the offense quickly and help lead a playoff push, while Denver is going in the other direction and starting inexperienced former-first-round pick Tim Tebow.

Denver does not want to pay Orton $5 million to sit on their bench the rest of the season and he is going to be a free agent at the end of the season anyway.

Why not trade him now and get some value out of the QB rather than let him walk for nothing after the 2011 campaign?

It will be interesting to see if the Raiders feel that Orton is more valuable than a free agent like David Garrard or a likely very-costly trade for Carson Palmer.