Indianapolis Colts general manager Chris Ballard and head coach Shane Steichen know the owner-imposed stakes have never been higher. In Ballard’s case, it’s no longer just borrowed time; the loan shark is coming to collect, and his cronies want what’s owed.
Time is up.
Or so we think. Ballard has been deemed a dead man walking by media and fans alike for several years, and yet, like a cat who’s used up his nine designated lives, he’s managed to talk the good Lord into giving him a tenth.
Either way, Carlie Irsay-Gordon didn’t mince words: results need to happen in 2026, or else the winds of change will descend upon West 56th Street. Depending on the results of the upcoming season, the Colts could see unprecedented levels of roster turnover in 2027. A new regime would look to clean house on a roster that had reached its “zenith”, shepherding the Colts into a (long-awaited?) rebuild.
The purpose of this two-part series is to give the reader a hyper-focused, deep dive into what a realistic offseason would look like for the Colts to maximize 2026 results.
This isn’t your run-of-the-mill prediction article.
If you’ve ever wondered how the salary cap is calculated, or why guaranteed money in a contract is more valuable than the total reported number, or even how prorated signing bonuses work in conjunction with void years, this is the article for you.
Every internal and external signing longer than two years will be modeled and explained with a visual from the Over the Cap contract calculator. Most contracts in the NFL are based on recently signed deals of players, viewed similarly to the player notarizing the new contract. My projections are no different. The contract used as a baseline for the new, estimated deal will be discussed in detail as well.
Cap space will be broken down step by step throughout the offseason in a dynamic, hopefully easy-to-follow format. In Part Two, I will lay out a full seven-round mock draft complete with film cutups of each selection, followed by a projected 53-man roster and depth chart. By the end of the exercise, the goal is to outline what a successful 2026 offseason could look like for Chris Ballard and company. A significant amount of legwork went into ensuring the cap maneuvering and draft selections fit within the realm of reality. Nevertheless, I feel it is apt to provide a disclaimer; there is a reason no NFL owner has asked me to run their team yet and likely never will.
But I’ll keep my LinkedIn inbox open just in case.
Behold- my attempt at armchair GMing the 2026 Indianapolis Colts.
Trades
Anthony Richardson’s trade request has just recently been made public, leading to discourse on where he’ll soon be traded and have the best chance to develop. Kevin O’Connell and the Vikings seem like a match in the midst of their own quarterback conundrum. However, the Vikings don’t have a fourth-round pick, which is the rumored asking price for the twenty-three-year-old. There are other intriguing teams, including the Cardinals, Rams, Browns, and Dolphins.
In this case, the Cardinals make an offer that Chris Ballard can’t pass up. Arizona holds the 3rd pick in the fourth round (104 overall) and is willing to swap it directly for Richardson. For Monti Ossenfort and the Cardinals, Richardson represents a high upside swing for the new coaching staff to take a chance on as they move out of the Kyler Murray era. Richardson and Jacoby Brissett would enter training camp as the two quarterbacks competing for starting reps. Meanwhile, new Cardinals head coach Mike Lafleur has seen his brother’s successes in developing a similar archetype of quarterback in Malik Willis. Ossenfort decides to take a chance in a year where the Cardinals will likely be in limbo with a young, developing core that lacks a clear vision at quarterback; sound familiar?
For Richardson and the Colts, a fresh start is sorely needed for both parties. Those who cover the team professionally will be able to more eloquently pontificate why the marriage between franchise and quarterback ultimately ended in divorce. But for the young quarterback, a new city and team may be what brings out the untapped potential that Chris Ballard and company saw when selecting him fourth overall in 2023.
Moving Richardson comes with a $5.4 million dead cap hit but also frees up an equal amount if a trade is agreed upon.
The second trade is an under-the-radar move that makes sense with context following the Colts’ usage of this player in 2025. The Colts trade Jaylon Jones to the Baltimore Ravens in exchange for a late 5th-round pick (173 overall). With Jesse Minter moving across the continental United States to take the reins of the Baltimore Ravens, he’ll be seeking out new players who fit his scheme. Most of Baltimore’s starting secondary outside of Nate Wiggins, Kyle Hamilton, and Marlon Humphrey will hit the free agent market, ushering in a new era of Baltimore’s secondary.
Under Minter in 2025, cornerbacks Cam Hart and Benjamin St-Juste played roughly 1,000 combined snaps, according to PFF. In a zone heavy scheme, these bigger, longer corners saw success under Baltimore’s new head ball coach. Jaylon Jones’ best play came when he was able to use his natural instincts in Gus Bradley’s cover 3 heavy defense. I could see the Ravens front office targeting Jones as a buy low candidate who needs a scheme change. As a bigger corner himself, Jaylon Jones fits the mold the former Chargers defensive coordinator wants to target for his rebuilt secondary. For a late fifth round pick, Chris Ballard makes the swap, knowing Jones didn’t fit with Lou Anarumo’s more man focused defense. Chris Ballard is always looking to add to his war chest of day three draft picks, and flipping a former seventh round pick for a fifth-round pick is good business. Trading Jones frees up another 2.8 million dollars.
The final trade of the offseason is another seemingly insignificant swap, yet it allowed for a trade up later for a prospect I was targeting. The Colts trade Jaylon Carlies and pick 230 to the Rams for pick 206. Jaylon Carlies is a player I loved coming out Missouri in 2024, so when the Colts picked him in the fifth round, I was incredibly excited. It’s never a good idea to have expectations for day three picks beyond possibly making the roster, and Carlies, while putting together inspiring performances when healthy, has lacked that necessary element during his short time in the league. Moreover, Carlies seemed to fall out of favor with Anarumo when he was injured early in training camp and never cracked the rotation with regularity when he returned. The Colts will be looking to revamp their linebacker room this offseason and with this trade they move up to the sixth-round from one of their seventh-round compensatory picks.
Los Angeles for their part is looking for a reliable running mate next to Nate Landman, who just signed a sizeable extension back in November. Omar Speights has provided serviceable play as a UDFA, but the Rams could and should look for competition for the Oregon State and LSU product. Carlies, a former safety, has shown flashes in coverage that are worth taking a chance on for a day three pick swap. The Rams are known for using scant resources to invest in the linebacker position, so Carlies’ day three salary will fit their prototype. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if LA turned the former Missouri Tiger into a starter that shows flashes of above average play. His best chance to reach his potential, however, may just be outside Indianapolis and this regime. Trading Carlies has an essentially negligible result on the cap, since his salary is barely over what the fifty first man is making.
Cuts and Restructure/Re-signings
The only major cut I’m proposing will be popular, but that’s not why I think Chris Ballard will choose to do it. As much as fans hate to hear it, Zaire Franklin is not the worst linebacker in the league, despite his low PFF grades. He’s an instinctual, athletically limited player who struggles in coverage and aggressively shoots gaps to produce boom or bust plays against the run. He’s an adequate linebacker who teams could get by with as their starter. The need to move on is more of a leadership issue, and changing up the loudest locker room voices in a critical year could prove beneficial. Cutting Franklin isn’t the easiest decision, as he’s a self-made player who’s earned his stripes after being drafted in the seventh round. But the results haven’t been there, and the defense needs an infusion of youth and talent to spark a playoff run, something Indianapolis can find in Franklin’s absence. Cutting Zaire saves the Colts 4.8 million dollars.
In the interest of timing and article length, I’ll include my projected contracts for Alec Pierce and Daniel Jones below. As of the time of writing, the Colts have recently utilized the transition tag on Jones, but I expect Chris Ballard to finalize extensions with both of them soon; Pierce has until next week to decide whether he wants to test free agency, while Jones has until July 15th to sign an extension now that he’s been tagged. Ensuring both are not playing on massive cap hits in 2026 and limiting the Colts’ flexibility to improve other areas of the roster will be a priority for this regime as they work to save their jobs.
For context, this Daniel Jones contract projection could end up being on the lower side of the actual contract based on recent reporting. When creating this structure, I used Sam Darnold’s contract as a baseline and then bumped up the guarantees slightly to adjust for inflation. It is essentially a two-year contract, with sizeable roster bonuses, and incentives that could bump up the AAV if Jones returns to first half of 2025 form:
Jones receives $41m guaranteed at signing between the signing bonus and salary guarantees, alongside another $15m that vests at the beginning of the 2027 league year if he’s on the roster. That $15m also acts as an injury guarantee that is often put in contracts as a buffer for the player. The upward scaling incentives match Darnold’s contract and allow Jones to earn even more. Ultimately, it’s basically a two-year deal that would allow the Colts to cut Jones for $6m dead cap in 2028 and $11m in 2027. Compared to Darnold, Jones is getting about $750,000 more APY and $3.5 million more guaranteed at signing. Importantly, his cap hit is only $14.6m in 2026. We’ll see what the Colts and Jones settle on, but after his Achilles injury and small sample size last season, this is more than fair.
Quickly on Pierce, because this article is long past the point of the average reading attention span, there’s a good chance he gets a larger deal than what I’ve projected now that the Colts have gone up to the deadline on tagging him (as of Monday, March 2nd). I do believe the Colts will get a long-term extension done with him so that his 2026 cap hit isn’t over $25m. To do this, I modeled an extension escalation based on the Nico Collins contract. Collins received a three-year extension worth $24.25m APY and a little more than $32m guaranteed at signing from Houston. Collins also got two vesting 10 mm bonuses guaranteed for injury that essentially act as roster bonuses. For Pierce, I gave him a small APY elevation to $25m that puts him in line with Devonta Smith, while guaranteeing $37m at signing. He also has an additional $7.5m that I included in the second year of the contract as an injury vest that would guarantee him if he were on the roster at the beginning of the next league year. Most importantly for 2026, his cap hit is reasonable, coming in at $12m:
Part two of this article will delve deeper into the specifics of contractual language through my proposed extensions for Michael Pittman Jr. and Quenton Nelson. After the remainder of the internal free agent signings are written up, I will then update the remaining cap space heading into mock free agency and the draft. Projected outside free agent contracts will be included in part 2 as well, while part 3 will feature the mock draft and roster projections.
If you made it this far, I’m not only impressed but incredibly grateful! I hope you’ll look out for part two coming to The Blue Stable soon!
