Crazy Offseason Plan the Colts Will Never Do That Just Might Work.

[Dam8610]

You read the title and clicked on the thread, so if you came in to bitch, go click on another thread. There's plenty of that going on already.

Still here? Cool, let's talk about shit that's never going to happen.

Step 1
Trade the 4th overall pick in the 2023 NFL draft to the Oakland Raiders for their 2024 1st round pick, 2024 2nd round pick, and 2025 1st round pick.

Rationale: We're going after Lamar Jackson in this scenario. We can't be forced to forfeit something we don't have. That's also half of the reason I'm not asking for their 7th pick in return. The other half of the reason for that is I probably won't get a second 1 from them for trading down three spots, but I can by targeting their future draft capital. Finally, this is a bet on Josh McDaniels doing Josh McDaniels things and continuing to blow up this franchise. I project all of the picks we're acquiring to be Top 5 in their respective rounds as a result.

Step 2
Negotiate with Lamar Jackson's camp and determine what kind of long term deal he would be willing to sign.

Rationale: For the plan to work, we need to be able to sign Lamar Jackson to a long term deal. Therefore, we need to know for what amount and contract structure Lamar would be willing to sign long term, preferably 4 years.

Step 3
Negotiate trade compensation with Eric DeCosta.

Rationale: This is where our move in Step 1 pays dividends. Sure, DeCosta could try to sit back and wait for an offer sheet to be signed, but why would we do his work for him? Furthermore, after our trade in Step 1, DeCosta is much more likely to match an offer sheet we would sign. By negotiating a trade, we can get around the 2 1st round pick requirement. I would offer something like our 2024 1st round pick and 3rd round pick and our 2025 2nd round pick. This is more compensation than any team has received for a franchise player in recent history, which is fine because Lamar Jackson is a more valuable player than any that have been tagged and traded recently.

Step 4
Sign Lamar Jackson to the pre-negotiated long term deal.

Rationale: I don't think this needs much explanation. If you do all the work listed above to get Lamar Jackson on the team, it doesn't make sense to leave him on the franchise tag and frustrated. Ideally this would be a 4 year deal, but I'd be okay with it being a 5 year deal.

At the end of this, the Colts have a franchise QB, their full complement of 2023 draft picks except the 4th overall pick, a 2024 1st round pick that is likely to be top 5 and all other 2024 draft picks except the team's own 1 and 3, and 2 1st round draft picks in 2025, including 1 that is likely to be top 5, and a full complement of 2025 draft picks other than the team's own 2. If you happen to luck out and the McDaniels dumpster fire results in the #1 overall pick, you can either select the QB everyone is calling a generational talent already or if after 1 year you believe in Lamar enough, you could flip that pick for all of the draft capital, draft Marvin Harrison Jr., and have 2 first round picks per year for the next half decade. This plan nets Lamar Jackson and a likely top 5 pick in each of the next 2 drafts, which to me sounds a lot better than draft Anthony Richardson at 4 and pray.

Thoughts?