Quote:
Originally Posted by rm1369
I think they believe in Brissett and want to give him a chance to prove he is worth it. They did that at the cost of franchising him next year without the ill will and uncertainty it would cause. The other option was to get into a bidding war for him. If you think they over paid now you would have hated that scenario. At least they only are on the hook for him for one additional year if he fails. This lets them make a more informed decision down the road.
Hoyer was signed to be a steady vet and sounding board. No matter what happens the Colts future at QB is likely young and inexperienced - Brissett, Kelly, a rookie. One of the best things teams can do for a young QB is provide them a steady, good influence as a mentor. That’s what they paid Hoyer for. That and to fill in any gaps with at least competent (not Curtis Painter) level QB play.
The Colts were in a bad situation. The franchise QB retired unexpectedly 2 weeks before the start of the season. Ballard had no good options. He took the best one he had.
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Yes, no doubt Colts were put in a tough position by the Luck retirement, and I can see how “any port in a storm” might be attractive so you try to lock down your newly promoted backup for an extra year. The strategy didn’t trouble me as much as what we paid, and we absolutely did have another option – to let him prove himself this year and to pay him the market rate after next season. Whether it was better or not is certainly debatable, but I prefer that scenario because (and for once I’ll get to use this rationale) we have plenty of cap space to work with, and I haven’t seen or read a whole lot which suggested that Brissett was all that promising a prospect (sure, the Colts’ brass has been pumping up the guy for a year or two, but I assumed a big chunk of that was to churn the trade waters). If the guy turned out to be the second coming of Peyton Manning, then we could easily pay him.