The nice thing about sports is that we can disagree, watch the games, then find out who was right.

That’s my way of saying that I’ll be back to dunk on several of you in 8 months.

Don't become AC Green.

I certainly hope so.

I don't know much about the Panthers, but I looked on one of their boards and they're having a laugh at us. Meh, it's not my money. I will trust in Ballard and Reich.
Apparently they refer to him as "Fun-Fun"...

I would agree with you if it was for more than one year. If he has a great year and it costs us a ton to sign long term or we lose him I'm happy. If he sucks Mr Irsay can eat the 10-13 million easy and it's not like we will have to cut anyone because we overpayed. You overpay in free agency.

Only because he's always injured. So your point is that Funchess is as good as an injured version of Jeffery?

I absolutely believe Funches wants to prove his worth. That’s kinda my point.

Why wouldn’t he sign a guy to a one year incentive laden contract? He has to spend some money and this allows him to keep all that flexibility for next year. And he can wait on Cain, a rookie, or both.

There is nothing about the signing that says it’s a long term solution. Ballard constantly says he wants to build thru the draft. This fits perfectly with that. Could he be a long term solution? Possibly. But it requires him performing at a level that shows him as viable solution, but not so good that he gets priced out of the Colts range. That’s a pretty narrow window IMO. It’s way more likely that he either doesn’t perform well enough or he performs too well. In which case next year several of you will be asking who can blame Ballard for not giving crazy money to a WR after only one good year when he’s given way to much money by Washington or Oakland or Buffalo or the Jets.

In all fairness, an injured version of Alshon Jeffery would be our best WR2 since...2013?

Interesting. Fun-Fun fits in the locker room. I think he steps up.

Funchess is still not anywhere near Alshon's level when he's healthy, so that comparison is silly.

I'm fine with the signing though. See what desire he has to show off his skills to earn another contract. We aren't committed to him long term if he doesn't work out.

Whatever, it's one year and we have money to burn. If he sucks he is gone with no commitment. If he blows up we look smart and either resign him or he leaves making more money and Luck looks more attractive to other FA WRs.

Did we need to pay $13 million to find that out? Who was Ballard bidding against?

Not to mention a good comp pick :cool:

Someone else said it was $10 million.

Someone described Ballard and his staff as the avengers of scouting. I'll trust them to see what he can bring to the team.

He may play well, I hope he does. But he hasn’t done anything to deserve a shot at making $13 million in one season.

Ok, ok you got me. I said Ebron was a meh signing. Of course the context is shown where I clarified that the Ebron signing itself was fine but I had issues with Ballard’s overall approach. But regardless you “got” me - I wasn’t sufficiently giddy about the Ebron signing. I’m sure if I look at all of your posts I won’t find an instance of you being more wrong than not being sufficiently happy, correct?

It’s funny you didn’t highlight my comments on the Grant signing. The one that is most applicable to this signing considering it’s the same position. And the exact same hole left by Ballard’s lack of a acquiring a long term solution last year. And one that severely hurt the team in the playoffs.

Swap Funches name for Grant’s and I stand by my comments.

As to your question I apparently didn’t address - I’m not complaining about there physical make up. I’d agree that physically Funches fits what I’d prefer opposite TY much more than Grant did. But he was still an underwhelming receiver his previous seasons. And yes I get that your comparison to Ebron is likely related to that. But that’s not my issue. I’ll use the Ebron signing to highlight my issue. Let’s pretend that Ebron signed the one year contract you are perfectly happy with and had the same year he had. Seeing the money being thrown around in free agency are you 100% confident that Ballard would have paid what was necessary to keep Ebron? Would you and Ballard be confident in making Ebron one of the highest, if not the highest, paid TE in the league? After one great season in a contract year following being labeled a bust? I don’t see it for you or for Chaka. I’d bet you both would pass. Hell I probably would too. That’s the issue and that’s why I have an issue with this contract. I’m not getting into Funches abilities as much as I’m saying there is very very little room for him to be the long term solution in Indy. If he’s Grant, he’s gone. If he’s Ebron, he’s gone. That’s the issue. Whether he’s 6’10” and Grant was 5’2” it’s irrelevant to my issue.

Well he's getting the chance, so let's see what he does with it.

I had a feeling we would see some bloated contracts. But it isn’t terrible.

i agree but it's $10 million $13 million max.

Luck is better than Cam, I believe his numbers will be better with him. If not, fuck it, it's only one year.

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Colts offense got better. Devin Funchess w Andrew Luck is not inconsistent Devin Funchess w Cam Newton. Everyone gets that, right? #duh

Cowherd loves Luck. Sometimes, he's a smart dude.

I enjoyed rereading it, other than remembering how annoying headcase was.

As I said before, this really has the feel of slightly overpaying to reach the rolling average. I feel like he wants to hold a good chunk of this cap space open for second contracts for our own.

This is who we have coming up next year:

Anthony Castonzo
Ryan Kelly
Kenny Moore
Jabaal Sheard
Jack Doyle
Eric Ebron
Jacoby Brissett
oh and Devin Funchess

We won't resign everyone. Kelly needs a healthy year. We won't keep Doyle and Ebron, I think we draft a TE this year. Jace Sternberger maybe, we met with him. Moore probably, and depends on Castonzo and the draft, but he will probably get another contract.

Castanzo and Kelly will require large contracts. If Ebron repeats, he'll require a large contract. Kenny Moore may need a decent sized contract. They may wish to hold on to Brissett, which would probably cost them a decent chunk of cap space. I could see that group needing $50-60 million AAV to retain depending on who you keep. That's a pretty large chunk of cap. Then who's up after 2020? 2021? 2022? I know Luck comes up in 2021, so does Darius Leonard. Especially if Ballard keeps drafting well, the Colts are going to be facing some difficult decisions in the coming years without a free agency spending spree. This is also Day 1 of teams even being allowed to talk to players outside of their organization. There are a lot of good players left out there, and the Colts could still land some of them.

Factor in a cap that just keeps going up. Is it averaging 10 million a year or close to that?

We will draft replacements for some of these guys. We won't pay two TEs big money.

The production has been remarkably consistent for 4 straight years. At what point do you change your opinion and say “he is what he produces?” 4 years is enough for me. If you can’t stay on the field, I’m not just going to extrapolate your production from when you actually suit up.

What does that matter on a one year deal if it has no impact on other moves?

Hope it works out. Dude had highest WR drop rate in NFL last year. The very problem we have been trying to get away from.

It's high, but you have to bear in mind that the cap grows 5% a year. A safety just got a $14m a year contract. A few years ago, safeties used to max out at $10m. $10m with incentives is equivalent to $8m from 3 years ago, and that's in the realm for WR2 money. If they have a use for the guy and think he'll perform at a level, I got trust in them.

Here's my $.02: SCam Newton regressed last year. That makes me question any low stats of the receivers on that team. Drop rates are subjective. If a QB, like sCam, is not quite accurate, the pass may be considered catchable, but is not actually as catchable as a ball thrown by a better WR. Luck is clearly a better WR. I like this move.

Living in Carolina and having followed Funchess, he is a decent WR.

Just not sure he is worth $13 million a year. And I fear he is going to be another in a long line of mediocre to failed #2 targets for this time in recent years.

I agree it “doesn’t matter” because we still have tons of cap. But that money could have been spent on an actual good player rather than a slow, unproven WR that drops the ball a lot. If the whole point was not spending A money on B players, which is what we keep hearing is Ballard’s plan, then what the hell is this?

I wouldn’t accept the premise that it has “no impact on other moves” if this is the guy that Ballard is checking off the list as the guy to address the WR position.

If the Colts are bypassing WR’s in the draft (not to mention more talented WR’s in free agency) because they’re “set” at WR with Funchess in the fold then there’s a fairly sizable opportunity cost to not addressing the position otherwise.

Heh, this parallels my thoughts exactly.

I think WR is one of the most experience base positions on an NFL team after QB. Today's modern offenses with their million and one "check me" and "option" varients requires the WR and QB to be able to both read and react to the defensive situation IN THE SAME WAY for success to happen.

That shared read and react takes time to develop and our parade of veteran "one year wonders" at WR has not been able to stay together long enough for that to happen. Either Luck was young and probably the lacking partner (Andre Johnson) or else the WR was probably at fault (Ryan Grant).

Regardless, perhaps Funchess will break our mold and get on the same page as Luck very quickly but most likely he will put up okay numbers and give younger WRs time to develop into that long term answer.

Gotta spend the cap somewhere. The $10m cap hit puts him as the 19th most compensated WR cap hit for 2019 (so far) just under Larry Fitzgerald and Davante Adams and just above Kenny Stills and Nelson Agholor.

Seems a bit high but honestly, if he had only signed for $8m ($11m possible) which most fans here would be more comfortable with, he would be the 26th highest cap hit for WR which is not much of a drop.

Free agents get paid.

Walk Worthy,

A 1 yr deal doesn't show by any means that they think they are set at WR with Funchess. If they are targeting WR in the draft, I highly doubt signing a UFA to a 1 year deal is going to affect that.

My two cents here is:

Different team
Different offense
Different QB
Different expectations

COULD lead to different results.

I did not say WILL lead to different results. I said could.

The same scouting staff that found Nelson and Leonard, and Smith and Mack and Hines (and Cain) identified Funchess as a free agent to sign. Let that sink in for a moment.

Of course, they also drafted Fountain so perhaps they suck at evaluating WRs...but I would let it play out on the field prior to deciding that you already know the outcome with certaintly, Nostradamus.

Walk Worthy,

I still say that this team could’ve been been better off signing either Tate, Humphries or Crowder and there’s some opportunity cost left on the table by not pursuing a guy with higher upside.

That said, if they do draft AJ Brown then I’ll happily shut up.

Obviously Ballard, Reich, and their scouting staff wanted him, so let's wait and see why.

Seems its actually a $10 million dollar deal with $3 million in incentives, per ESPN article. Not sure what those incentives are

Makes it a little better at least