o
2026 NFL Offseason ...... AFC Teams’ Best and Worst Deals, Picks
(By Bill Barnwell)
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...icks-contracts
INDIANPOLIS COLTS
Best
Signing
l Arden Key l to a 2-year, $16 Million contract. GM Chris Ballard has tried to draft and develop edge-rushers with limited success, and the Colts moved on from the likes of Kwity Paye and Tyquan Lewis this offseason. Laiatu Latu took a big step forward as a pass-rusher last year, and the Colts will hope for a breakthrough season from 2025 2nd-rounder JT Tuimoloau, but Indianapolis needed another edge-rusher in its rotation and didn't have a first-round pick to go after one.
Landing on Key was a solid move at the right cost. The 30-year-old journeyman has been a consistently solid rotational player on the edge. He has managed double-digit quarterback knockdowns in each of the past 6 seasons while playing for 4 different teams. In his one year as a full-time starter in 2024, Key racked up 6.5 sacks, 15 knockdowns and 11 tackles for loss. He can be a bit of a freelancer at times as a run defender, which might make him a liability at times on early downs, but Key has able to win one-on-one against tackles and create splash plays. He should be a useful player for 400 snaps in 2026.
Worst
Guaranteeing
l Daniel Jones l nearly $50 Million for 2026. It was inevitable that the Colts would keep Jones after his incredible first half in 2025, even if that run ended with him tearing his Achilles and sitting out the final four games of the season. That came with a $37.8 Million transition tag, which seemed reasonable enough for a player with Jones' track record of inconsistency and the uncertainty surrounding his ability to return from the Achilles injury to begin the 2026 season.
But when the Colts eventually came to terms with Jones on an extension, the actual price to get him under contract and onto the field in 2026 had ballooned up. Ballard probably wanted to restructure that $37.8 Million figure to reduce Jones' cap hit in 2026, and had obviously hoped to get him under contract past this upcoming season ...... at least for one more year ...... without making a multiyear commitment.
To get that done, though, the Colts had to guarantee Jones $49.5 Million in 2026. They weren't able to tie more than $510,000 of that into per-game roster bonuses, which would have protected the Colts if Jones was unable to play to start the year, or benched by the end of his 2nd season.
Was anyone else really going to pay $37.8 Million or more to trigger the transition tag, and force the Colts into a difficult decision ??? If that was a real concern, why didn't the Colts give Jones the $43.9 Million franchise tag, which would have made an outside deal even more unlikely ??? And if there was no market for him, the Colts needed to do more to produce a friendlier contract for their quarterback, either by reducing the guarantee or by putting more of the money into per-game roster bonuses.
The Giants got fooled by one good year from Jones, and made a franchise-altering mistake. The Colts are desperate for a solution at QB after cycling through option after option following Andrew Luck's retirement, but this deal might not afford them any sort of stability or upside.
o