Free agency 2023
 

A little more than a month away, and thoughts begin to turn to free agency.

I won’t bore anyone with cold, hard numbers, suffice it to say that the Colts don’t have a lot of cap space. However, as we all know, cap space is easily carved out with a bit of creative bookkeeping.

This year’s class of free agents is not believed to be brimming with elite talent. There are no game changing Receivers or dominant, pass rushing Defensive Ends. If you’re looking for it, there does seem to be help at the Tackle position…just so long as their old team doesn’t lock them down with a new contract or a franchise tag…which seems likely. After all, does anybody believe that the Chiefs will let Orlando Brown slip away?

ESPN’s list of the top 50 free agents include a handful of Linebackers, but they all play inside; and, even if a pass rushing LB was available, I wouldn’t sign him as long as Gus Bradley was running things on that side of the ball. Gus could take Lawrence Taylor, and have him taking turns staying home, setting the edge, or dropping back into zone coverage.

No, the guy I want is Isaac Seumalo, the Eagles RG. I know that the team already has a lot tied up in paying O’Linemen, but two things…the cap is getting ready to rise by a substantial amount, and we’re looking at playing a QB, the next few season, with a bargain basement rookie contract.

Andrew Luck’s experience should offer a cautionary tale about the price of putting a young QB behind a sieve of a Line. If Nelson returns to anywhere near his pre 2003 form, the days of seeng blitzes up the gap would be at an end. If Raimann continues to develop, he and Smith give us bookends at Tackle. Kelly’s a question mark at Center, and that’s reason enough to spend a 2nd or 3rd round pick on the best one we can find in the draft.

Looks like it's time to break out my favorite Ballard meme

https://bestteestore.net/wp-content/...ents-shirt.png

If I was a GM I don't care if it is a current need or not, but I would be drafting an offensive or defensive lineman within the first 3 rounds every single year. Preferably one of each. There are 9 starters to fill out the roster on those two positions and you have to constantly renew the talent with young bodies, to keep the overall costs down. We have 3 high priced veterans on the Oline, which is great in terms of their abilities (although they didn't perform great last year), but you can't have 5 of them, so have to keep evolving from year to year.

Spending money on free agents on the Oline, is an expensive way of building a line, i am ok with the depth being via free agency on sensible contracts.

I'm prepared to be disappointed in free agency. The only thing I expect is to cut Matt Ryan.

Good place to start

And Foles to leave.

Thats two positive moves

I'm trying to stay positive this off season. IDK how much success I'll have, but I'm trying...

We have little salary cap space, so I am not expecting much at all from free agency, a few mid level guys to bolster the depths, and maybe a starter at RG.

I am not so sure that we will release Foles, if we draft a QB in the 1st round, are we really going to want our only other QB on the roster to be Ehlinger for him to learn from? I guess if we release Foles (not sure of the cap hit if we did this) then we could bring in someone like Dalton or Bridgewater for their experience? But are they any different or better than Foles?

Ballard might have to change is thinking a little bit. Steichen just left an organization with a GM that takes big swings & isn’t afraid to do so.