Colts Cap Update – 13 March 2017

[sherck]

$167.000m = NFL 2017 Cap
$006.614m = Colts roll-over from 2016
===========
$173.614m = Colts 2017 Cap

$121.043m = Colts Top 51 Off-Season Contracts
$001.080m = Spots #52 and #53 on In-Season Active Roster
$006.322m = Estimated Draftee Cap Hit
$006.376m = Dead Money
$003.000m = In-Season “Churn” Space
===========
$137.821m = Obligations

Jabaal Sheard’s contract has still not been released. Straight line averaging would result in an $8.5m per year cap hit so we will add that number as a place-holder although it is likely that the first year number will be higher if Ballard followed the same format as Doyle’s and Simon’s contracts.

[[ EDIT: While I still don't have complete info, news is now stating that Sheard's first year cap hit will be $9.96m with the 2018 hit being $7.5m and 2019 being $8.0m. No pro-rated signing bonus so all the "guaranteed" money will be in year one. This is becoming the standard Ballard contract structure. ]]

$147.781m = Estimated Obligations (NEW NUMBER)

$025.833m = Available “New” Money Cap Space to sign free agents (New Number)


Top Ten Cap Hits:

$19.400m = Andrew Luck
$12.800m = Anthony Castonozo
$10.250m = Vontae Davis
$10.000m = T.Y. Hilton
$09.960m = Jabaal Sheard (New Number)
$08.000m = Jack Doyle
$07.350m = Arthur Jones
$06.000m = John Simon
$04.250m = Kendall Langford
$03.500m = Frank Gore

To only have 10 guys with over a $3.500m cap hit indicates that we really do not have many “high priced” talents on the team.

Cap Savings Over $1.000m If Cut:

$09.000m = Vontae Davis
$05.150m = Arthur Jones
$04.400m = Anthony Castonzo
$04.000m = T.Y. Hilton
$03.750m = Kendall Langford
$03.500m = Frank Gore
$02.750m = Adam Vinatieri
$02.100m = Akeem Ayers
$01.797m = Donte Moncrief
$01.750m = Scott Tolzien
$01.500m = Barkevious Mingo

Lots of money left to sign one of the ILBs who can cover (Hightower, Brown, Hodges, Minter), perhaps a NT (Johnathan Hawkins, Bennie Logan) although neither are better than NFL average (or below average) and a secondary body if desired.

Why the heck are none of the ILBs moving? Of the top 8 ILBs on the UFA market (Hightower, Riley, Brown, Hodges, Minter, Armstrong, Levy, Spence), only Armstrong is signed. This is the only position in free agency where impact players are still available five days into free agency. Why?

And why have we not signed our pick of them? Were we waiting to see if we signed Poe? If so, that ship is sailing; let’s go to the next priority!

For those of you who are not opposed to Pro Football Focus grades, here are the top twenty remaining 2016 graded Unrestricted Free Agents who are unsigned. Bolded are the ones that I think fit the Colts:

Terence Newman, CB, aged 39 (age)
Don’t’a Hightower, ILB, aged 27
Perry Riley, ILB, aged 31 (age)
Morris Clairborne, CB, aged 27 (zone)
Zach Brown, ILB, aged 27
Lardarius Webb, S, aged 31 (age)
Darius Butler, CB/S, aged 31
Gerald Hodges, ILB, aged 26
J.J. Wilcox, S, aged 26
Kevin Minter, ILB, aged 26
Lorenzo Alexander, OLB, aged 34 (age)
Isa Abdul-Quddus, S, aged 28 (zone)
Bradley McDougald, S, aged 26
Jared Cook, TE, aged 30 (offense)
Jerome Felton, FB, aged 31 (offense)
Nickell Robey-Coleman, CB, aged 25 (zone)
Dwight Freeney, DE/OLB, aged 37 (age)
Jarius Byrd, S, aged 30 (not yet cut but going to be)
Nick Mangold, OC, aged 33 (age)
Darryl Tapp, 4-3 DE, aged 32 (age; wrong position)

Lots of ILB and Safeties that are on the correct side of 30 in that list. Could be positions where we could still sign some help for the defense. We have the room to do so.

Cheers,

[sherck]

$025.833m Cap for Free Agents

Robert Turbin - Around $2m a year
Margus Hunt - ???
Brian Schwenke - ???

My guess is that Hunt is less than $2m a year but that Schwenke is around or more than $2m a year so I will estimate an average of $2m a year.

$019.833m Cap for New Free Agents.


Based on the bargain deals that Ballard keeps spending, that could equate to 3 more veteran free agents (at around $6m each) or two more highly priced ones.

Cheers,

[smitty46953]

Hey Scherk, do you have a spreadsheet that has number players on current roster? What we need to reach 90? Current cap situation?

[sherck]

Cap situation in post above yours.

66 bodies under contract
7 draftees

17 more to fill 90 man roster

Cheers,

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[Wyatt]

didn't know which thread to post this to, but here goes

@HolderStephen 2m2 minutes ago
Just got #Colts performance based pay. Top 5: Joe Haeg $276K, Edwin Jackson $211K, David Parry $176K, Erik Swoope $166K, Denzelle Good $165K

[rcubed]

Originally Posted by Wyatt

didn't know which thread to post this to, but here goes

@HolderStephen 2m2 minutes ago
Just got #Colts performance based pay. Top 5: Joe Haeg $276K, Edwin Jackson $211K, David Parry $176K, Erik Swoope $166K, Denzelle Good $165K

Parry's lawyer thanks this post.

[sherck]

Originally Posted by Wyatt

didn't know which thread to post this to, but here goes

@HolderStephen 2m2 minutes ago
Just got #Colts performance based pay. Top 5: Joe Haeg $276K, Edwin Jackson $211K, David Parry $176K, Erik Swoope $166K, Denzelle Good $165K

Considering that Joe Haeg got paid $242k in signing bonus and then $450k in salary for 2016, an extra $276k represents 28.5% of his total money paid for his first year in the league. That is a pretty nice performance bonus.

Edwin Jackson did better from the standpoint that he got paid a flat $450k to play football in 2016. The extra $211k he got represents an almost 50% increase in his pay for the year. That is some nice cheddar.

Cheers,

[sherck]

Numbers are in on Turbin's deal:

2017 = $1.381m cap hit ($800k salary; $581k roster bonus)
2018 = $1.300m cap hit ($1.000m salary, $300k per game active bonus)

Solidly good numbers; only $500k guaranteed. He could get cut this year before the season and still deliver back $881k in cap space. Next season he has zero dead money possible so he could be cut without cap ramifications.

Good signing for a solid backup. Hopefully, we draft some rookie in the 4th round and Turbin gets pushed down to #3 by mid-year.

Still no contract numbers on Hunt or Schwenke.

Cheers,

[sherck]

St Patty’s Day Cap Update – 17 March 2017

On 08 March 2017, the Colts started with around $49.418m in free cap space to use to sign new free agents. Since then, the Colts GM Chris Ballard has made the following moves:

$8.000m (-) = Re-signed TE Jack Doyle (actually happened previously but the numbers were not out yet)
$1.937m (+) = Traded TE Dwayne Allen to the Cheats
$0.598m (-) = Cap hit for new 4th round draft choice #137 overall from the Cheats
$0.501m (+) = Cap savings for traded away 6th round draft choice #200 overall to Cheats
$2.500m (+) = Released CB Patrick Robinson
$1.750m (-) = Signed P Jeff Locke as our new starting Punter
$5.843m (-) = Signed OLB John Simon as new starting OLB[EDGE]
$2.000m (-) = Signed OLB Barkevious Mingo as rotational pass rush specialist / Special Teamer
$9.968m (-) = Signed OLB Jabaal Sheard as new starting OLB[RUSH]
$2.068m (-) = Signed DE Margus Hunt as rotational defensive end depth / Special Teamer
$1.300m (-) = Signed OC/OG Brian Schwenke as potential starting right OG or veteran interior depth
$1.381m (-) = Signed RB Robert Turbin to be the primary rotational RB with Frank Gore (and/or a rookie)

We don't have numbers for new NT Al Woods but it is reported that his deal is 2-year, $5m total so we will use the number of $2.500m as his 2017 cap hit

$2.500m (-) = Signed NT Al Woods to be a rotational NT in our 3-4 defense (with who?)

$18.948m still available to sign free agents.


From a cap standpoint, the only guy that I wonder if we overpaid is Sheard. We paid him like a pass rusher (who are always overpaid) but he is not a double digit sack master. He has had at least 7.0 sacks a season in 3 of his 6 seasons and at least 5.0 sacks in 2 other seasons but we paid him as if he were a rush OLB and he really is not.

Alas, anyone who sacks the QB get overpaid in this league so we probably overpaid him....but honestly not by much I don't think.

=======================================
So, Ballard has used $30.470m of cap space to add nine new bodies to a sub-standard roster while getting rid of two underperforming bodies:

OFFENSE
Re-sign our stud young TE offensive weapon (Doyle)
Trade away our highly paid but underperforming other TE (Allen)
Sign a potential new starting right OG or else our primary depth at OC/OG (Schwenke)
Re-sign our #2 RB (Turbin)

DEFENSE:
Cut our underperforming CB2 (Robinson)
Sign 2 new starting OLBs (Simon and Sheard)
Sign 2 cheap, underperforming but with potential defensive front-7 depth players (Mingo, Hunt)
Sign rotational NT (Woods)

SPECIAL TEAMS:
Sign a new Punter (Locke)


As long as we can sign one of the ILBs left on the market (Brown, Hodges, Minter) and re-sign Butler than I think we will have done a pretty good job of filling quite a few holes in free agency.

Cheers,

[Racehorse]

Originally Posted by sherck

St Patty’s Day Cap Update – 17 March 2017

On 08 March 2017, the Colts started with around $49.418m in free cap space to use to sign new free agents. Since then, the Colts GM Chris Ballard has made the following moves:

$8.000m (-) = Re-signed TE Jack Doyle (actually happened previously but the numbers were not out yet)
$1.937m (+) = Traded TE Dwayne Allen to the Cheats
$0.598m (-) = Cap hit for new 4th round draft choice #137 overall from the Cheats
$0.501m (+) = Cap savings for traded away 6th round draft choice #200 overall to Cheats
$2.500m (+) = Released CB Patrick Robinson
$1.750m (-) = Signed P Jeff Locke as our new starting Punter
$5.843m (-) = Signed OLB John Simon as new starting OLB[EDGE]
$2.000m (-) = Signed OLB Barkevious Mingo as rotational pass rush specialist / Special Teamer
$9.968m (-) = Signed OLB Jabaal Sheard as new starting OLB[RUSH]
$2.068m (-) = Signed DE Margus Hunt as rotational defensive end depth / Special Teamer
$1.300m (-) = Signed OC/OG Brian Schwenke as potential starting right OG or veteran interior depth
$1.381m (-) = Signed RB Robert Turbin to be the primary rotational RB with Frank Gore (and/or a rookie)

We don't have numbers for new NT Al Woods but it is reported that his deal is 2-year, $5m total so we will use the number of $2.500m as his 2017 cap hit

$2.500m (-) = Signed NT Al Woods to be a rotational NT in our 3-4 defense (with who?)

$18.948m still available to sign free agents.


From a cap standpoint, the only guy that I wonder if we overpaid is Sheard. We paid him like a pass rusher (who are always overpaid) but he is not a double digit sack master. He has had at least 7.0 sacks a season in 3 of his 6 seasons and at least 5.0 sacks in 2 other seasons but we paid him as if he were a rush OLB and he really is not.

Alas, anyone who sacks the QB get overpaid in this league so we probably overpaid him....but honestly not by much I don't think.

=======================================
So, Ballard has used $30.470m of cap space to add nine new bodies to a sub-standard roster while getting rid of two underperforming bodies:

OFFENSE
Re-sign our stud young TE offensive weapon (Doyle)
Trade away our highly paid but underperforming other TE (Allen)
Sign a potential new starting right OG or else our primary depth at OC/OG (Schwenke)
Re-sign our #2 RB (Turbin)

DEFENSE:
Cut our underperforming CB2 (Robinson)
Sign 2 new starting OLBs (Simon and Sheard)
Sign 2 cheap, underperforming but with potential defensive front-7 depth players (Mingo, Hunt)
Sign rotational NT (Woods)

SPECIAL TEAMS:
Sign a new Punter (Locke)


As long as we can sign one of the ILBs left on the market (Brown, Hodges, Minter) and re-sign Butler than I think we will have done a pretty good job of filling quite a few holes in free agency.

Cheers,

Add in Butler as a positive move.