So, no car payment? Bet he drives a pickup? :cool:

For as much as it smashed the old record for Guards, it seems set up reasonably well for the Colts.

Big and well deserved payday for Nelson. I du no if it was this tired or another, but Ballard said he is one of the main reasons we are a physical team. A steal on draft day and a steal with this contract.

Seems too like Nelson could have fleeced Irsay for more and would have been paid. Nelson is a solid colt and future hof.

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It's a guard compared to a QB, I know... But considering Lamar Jackson just declined a $250m contract because he wants it to be fully guaranteed (thanks, Cleveland Browns)... this is a relatively easy contract to hand out.

If teams start caving and following Cleveland's lead, holy shit.

I wanted to bump this topic because it need to be mentioned....

Shouldn't a $20 milllion per year lineman, regardless of their position on the line, transform that unit as a productive one?
The Colts line has been pure trash this year even if Nelson himself hasn't been terrible.
Would this team be any worse up front if they had traded Nelson for a first rounder? Would the franchise have been better set up for next season with another first rounder? Especially given the fact that we are looking at likely a high 1st in the upcoming draft.

The question isn't weather you should pay your best guys. You should. But there should never be a single player that isn't expendable, either due to their high value or lake thereof.
The only scenario where taking Q as high as we did would end up biting us in the ass was if he ended up starting his career at an All-Pro level- which he did- and it painted us into a corner.
I thought the same about Leonard until I witnessed just how bad we are without him in the lineup. He clearly is a difference maker, and even if he ends up retiring before age 30 (which I expect), I think we need him on our team. But why? If we are going young at QB, we don't need stars, we need assets.
Ballard has proven that he is willing to pay his own guys- no need to beat the dead horse, as this point has been cemented into our locker room- maybe to the point where guys are getting complacent after getting paid- see B. Smith, R. Kelly, maybe Buck too.
This team desperately needs to be realigned, starting with the spine of our roster. Get something for our assets while they are still considered assets.

I disagree quite a bit. High draft picks and a brand new QB are flashy new toys, but gutting the team to get those new toys is just the wrong thing to do. Maybe if we are talking aging vets, but you mentioned guys in their prime. We need guys like that.

Do we though? I agree that teams need playmakers, but if we strip our current assets to stack on a rebuild with players at the right positions and age then we will no doubt find more guys like that.
Even moving on from one of Nelson, Leonard or Taylor could be enough to give us a franchise signal caller or a shot at one of the top ones in the upcoming draft. I would trade away any three of the players mentioned if it could guarantee as much. Furthermore, by the time we actually do get a franchise QB and fill our current holes, all of our "difference makers" will be too old to matter anyway. We need to re-align our roster with our goals. They never adjusted from what was built around Luck and the lack of a transition plan shows. Q was drafted for Luck and played up to his draft positions (maybe even exceeded it). When Luck split, we should have reprioritized everything and went all out for QB immediately including selling our all world guard to the highest bidder. Q was a luxury that we could afford to have with Andrew. Now is is a heavy saddle on a team that has no horses.

I agree that we should have went all in for a real QB when Luck retired, but the rest is what I disagree with.

Oh no! Nelson got paid!
Now it's his turn to join the half-hearted OL group of Ryan Kelly and Braden Smith and play soft to not get injured.

No left guard in the NFL is worth $20M a year.