Poe has more name recognition for his one really good season, but after reading more about his back surgery and how much it has affected him, I think I'd rather go with Williams. But Ballard knows better than most how to approach Poe so I am not going to worry about it.

We have quite a lot of money invested in our starting TE's, but they are both starters and other than Hilton we have little to nothing invested in our receivers. We have Hilton, Moncrief, Allen, Doyle and Gore as our offensive specialists and now all are paid as starters except Moncrief. Our 3rd receiver Dorsett is also not on a big contract. To me we are actually still probably below the league average for the overall contract value of our offensive specialists, even if you were to include Luck.

Luck = $19.4m
Hilton = $10.0m
Moncrief = $1.9m
Allen = $6.0m
Doyle = $6.0m
Gore = $3.5m
Total spend = $46.8m


Looking at the money spent on the team, we have practically nothing invested on the offensive line besides the $12.8m for Castonzo. It's less than $8m for every other body currently on our roster which includes names that i have never heard of. The other main guys, Mewhort, Kelly, Haeg, Clark, Good and Blythe combine for a total of $6m. Obviously after this season Mewhort is going to get a nice contract extension.

I really do think that we will be making a bit of a splash in free agency hopefully spending $7-8m a year on Larry Warford.

A starting line of Castonzo, Mewhort, Kelly, Warford and Clark, with Haeg, Good and Blythe possibly Harrison as backups would look fine in my eyes.

I'm glad Doyle is staying. Now fix the defense.

I am glad Doyle is staying but I agree that is a lot to invest in two tight ends.

Just pretend one of them is a WR.

Then, we have two highly paid WRs (Hilton, Allen) and one highly paid TE (Doyle) and no one would bat an eye at that pay structure.

As of right now, those three guys are 3 of 4 targets whom Luck trusts and depends on the most (add in Moncrief) and whom will power our passing offense with others chipping in bit roles (Dorsett, Rogers, Swoope, Gore).

I fully expect both Allen and Doyle to deliver in 2017 or else know that they will be gone probably starting next year; especially if Swoope continues to progress. I suspect that Allen is much more on the bubble than Doyle because, so far, Doyle has only shown year-to-year improvement in his game.

Next year, our "highly paid" receivers might be Hilton, Moncrief and Doyle and I don't think anyone would have an issue with it and be saying "you can't pay that much money to your wide receivers!!!!"

Cheers,

I'm very glad. I think if you have a proven producer on your team you pay
him unless his demands are outrageous or the teams cap prohibits it, neither
of which came into play here. The draft and to some extent, free agency
are crapshoots. You just don't let talent that you have slip through your fingers.

Except they aren't WRs or used like WRs, neither one of them

I like what Doyle does for the team but he clearly is a tight end. And Allen is not healthy enough and on the field enough to justify the money he was paid last year.

If one of them were used like a WR, in the slot like a Jimmy Graham or even how Dallas Clark was used with Manning, you'd have a better argument.

I understand what you are saying, but just paying a tight end more money because your WRs don't make as much and aren't used as much is a hard justification.

The answer should be the find a way to use the WRs you have more, not pay the tight ends more because your offensive scheme relies on them the most.

http://www.indystar.com/story/sports...ract/98905360/

Sounds like it is structured pretty nicely to help us moving forward, also note he is now the 16th highest paid TE in the league.

$8.000m cap hit in 2017 including all of the $7.500m guaranteed money.

$5.250m cap hit in 2018

$5.650m cap hit in 2019

Good contract.

NOTE: No signing bonus. Almost all the guaranteed money was roster bonus so none of the "pro-rated" cap hits push into future years. If Jack gets cut (or traded away to a rival team), we have no dead cap to eat.

I like the structure.

Cheers,

Well, hopefully this calms the concerns over Ballard as contract writer. That's actually a great deal for the Colts. It's essentially a 1 year $8 million deal with two team options at $5.25 and $5.65 million.