** The Official will the Bills go down like Omahas mom vs the Colts Game day thread**

[Dam8610]

Originally Posted by Chromeburn

100 million, you can do both.

First, $100 million is an exaggeration by a lot. Counting the 2020 rollover, the Colts have $72 million in cap space against the projected 2021 cap. That seems like quite a bit until you look at the unrestricted free agent list:

QB Philip Rivers
QB Jacoby Brissett
WR T.Y. Hilton
DE Justin Houston
DE Denico Autry
S Malik Hooker
CB Xavier Rhodes
RT Le'Raven Clark
SS Tavon Wilson
CB T.J. Carrie
TE Trey Burton
OT Chaz Green
OC Joey Hunt
DT Taylor Stallworth
CB Tremon Smith
RB Marlon Mack
LB Anthony Walker Jr.
DE Al-Quadin Muhammad
P Ryan Allen
OT Jared Veldheer

That's nearly half of the DL rotation, all of the QBs but Eason, Hilton, Walker, and Rhodes that at the very least you have to consider retaining. I know I'd want Autry, Muhammad, Stallworth, Rhodes, and Hilton back at the very least. I think the team could withstand losing pretty much everyone else without missing a beat. How much will those 5 cost? Conservatively $30 million? If you want the three good backup OLs on that list as well, make it at least $35 million. Now let's look at RFAs, which is a short list:

WR Zach Pascal
S George Odum

Assuming an "original round" (see: only RoFR) tender for both, that's another $4.5 million, so let's call that $40 million.

That leaves $32 million with Jacob Eason as the only QB on the roster. Assuming a roughly $7 million rookie pool, that leaves $25 million. If Rivers resigns for $20 million, there's your $5 million of roster churn space. If you don't resign Hilton and Rhodes, maybe that's another $20 million, so who do you spend that on? You could get a different #1 WR for that money, maybe Kenny Golladay or JuJu Smith-Schuster, but that's going to cost $15 million per year at least, probably more. You could take a chance on Bud Dupree and his torn ACL or Von Miller who hasn't played this year from what I can tell, but either of them will cost $12+ million. Bottom line is there's not a lot of room for the Colts this year. Either they're going to let a lot of their team go or they're not going to have much room for outside free agents, and next year is when guys like Leonard, Braden Smith, etc. start coming due. Nelson is after 2022, so are Okereke and Willis. Then in 2023, Pittman, Taylor, Blackmon, and this year's first rounder if they're any good come due. There will likely be a $40 million jump from 2021 to 2022 cap, but the Colts don't have the monstrous amount of room they used to anymore.