Counterpoint: Unless Brissett lights it up this year, they're likely to draft a QB next draft. Then Brissett is just a placeholder for 2020 and they don't have to plan for a tag in 2021.

If Brissett plays well, then he's your answer and you're looking to lock him up for 2022 and beyond.

How are we going to draft or sign a QB of any significance when we already have lots of guaranteed money tied up in Brissett and Hoyer? How many QBs can we afford to carry on the active roster? Or do we just cut them? And all of this ignores Kelly, who many were ready to designate the heir apparent to Luck only a few days ago.

Just trying to understand how everyone sees the overall strategy here. To me, the Brissett and Hoyer signings suggest (at least until we see the actual contract terms) that we won't be looking to draft a QB next year - or at least not one that will be carried on the active roster.

Certainly you’d prefer to never franchise him. I’m not advocating that they do. But let’s be clear - if Brissett is even a mid tier QB you can’t let him walk for nothing. So the franchise tag isn’t a GOOD option, but it’s a realistic one. Especially if he asked for stupid, long term money after one decent season. The Colts now have two years to try to make a decision and avoid using it. I don’t doubt they would then use it if necessary though. You don’t just let promising young QBs walk for nothing and it’s dangerous to throw huge long term money at such an unknown. The 3rd option is the franchise tag. The Colts pushed that bad option down the road one year to when they hopefully have a better understanding of what they have in Brissett. But I don’t doubt at all that the franchise tag factored into the decision and it’s why they were ok giving him such a big raise - it’s what they were likely paying next year anyway.

Yes, the Colts obviously like him, and that's the one thing that helps me understand this deal. Not sure I agree with your franchise tag rationale, as Spaceman pointed out, the QB franchise tag is only $25m. It will go up by next year, but probably not significantly above the $28 million we paid to Brissett under this deal. Yes, I suppose it's a "free" franchise tag in a sense, so we wouldn't start the escalations for the following year, but was the cost worth it?

I'm a big Ballard fan, no question, but deals like this aren't my thing. To me, you reward performance, which is kinda what I thought Ballard was all about. So I would have been perfectly fine with letting Brissett prove himself, and then paying him a lot if he did - even more than the $28M if necessary. Outside of the draft, I'm not as much of a fan of paying a guy top dollar before he's done anything to merit it.

I think they believe in Brissett and want to give him a chance to prove he is worth it. They did that at the cost of franchising him next year without the ill will and uncertainty it would cause. The other option was to get into a bidding war for him. If you think they over paid now you would have hated that scenario. At least they only are on the hook for him for one additional year if he fails. This lets them make a more informed decision down the road.

Hoyer was signed to be a steady vet and sounding board. No matter what happens the Colts future at QB is likely young and inexperienced - Brissett, Kelly, a rookie. One of the best things teams can do for a young QB is provide them a steady, good influence as a mentor. That’s what they paid Hoyer for. That and to fill in any gaps with at least competent (not Curtis Painter) level QB play.

The Colts were in a bad situation. The franchise QB retired unexpectedly 2 weeks before the start of the season. Ballard had no good options. He took the best one he had.

The deal he signed will come really close to equaling next years tag plus what he was owed this year. That’s one reason I’m fairly certain the tag entered into the equation. They have gained another year to evaluate him without using the tag and then still have the tag available as a worse case scenario. 1 year of tag is realistic, 2 is not IMO. They maintained flexibility with this deal.

I understand paying for performance but is one year of performance enough? Remember that’s my issue with the Funchess signing. Guys have a good year and they are going to want to capitalize on it. And as you have repeatedly said - teams overpay in free agency. One year of performance is better than none, but is it enough to lock a guy up for 3-5 years with big guarantees? For me it’s not. Especially not at QB.

I don't dispute all that

And I also don't argue with the deal or that it was done

But in the end, it really just gives you an extra year, two instead of one, to determine if you want to give him big money or a long term contract

And I don't think one extra year is going to make a difference in that decision. I think we will now by the end of this year if he is the long term answer or not. The OL and the rest of the offense is pretty solid, as is the coaching, so his performance will pretty easy to pick out as worthy or not

You're reading waaaaayyyyy too much into the length of the contracts. There's nothing to prevent the Colts from moving on from Brissett or Hoyer next season, just as there was nothing to prevent Ballard from releasing John Simon prior to last season. There would be a cap hit, but it would hardly make a dent in the cap space.

As far as the strategy, it's pretty simple:

1) Brissett proves to be the guy and you stick with him.
2) You aren't sure about Brissett, so you draft a QB. Having that extra WAS 2nd round pick could help in trading up. You could even keep Brissett and/or Hoyer on the roster next year to help the rookie or start the season if they aren't sure the rookie is ready to jump right in and play.

You just cut if necessary and take the cap hit which we are in good position for currently. Also, I would assume the new QB in question here would be drafted and not a FA. So you have brisset there to have the cost controlled rookie learn under for a year or partial year. I dont see either hoyer or brissett contract as being that limiting to what they can do.

Yeah this is where we disagree. I think the extra year will be huge in making that determination. Or at least it should be. Brissett is still young. He isn’t a finished product. If he struggles the first half of the season and then has a pretty good second half how much is he worth? Did he just get hot? Or did he improve? If he improved, will it continue? Teams make mistakes all the time on QBs by being desperate and projecting short term success into a long term career. With the money QBs command you can’t afford to be wrong.

That depends entirely on how the season goes. If it's 2017 redux, Brissett can be cut with almost no dead money and the Colts will have a top 5 pick, which they'll almost assuredly use on a QB and have Hoyer in place as the placeholder starter. If it's a division title, deep playoff run type of season, Brissett becomes the franchise guy at least for now. What I'm hoping doesn't happen is that Brissett has a middling season, the Colts don't have the draft capital for a QB, and so they decide to stick with Brissett, even though he's clearly not the answer.

You're right, we aren't going to agree here.

If he was a rookie or playing his first season I might agree. But he has already had one season as a starter, though in a different shitty system, and was with the team last year under Reich. This is his 4th year in the league, second year starting. If he can't prove he is worth the money this year, I doubt anything he would do next year would change my mind.

Plus Reich and Ballard have proven to be excellent at their jobs. I think they will know by season's end if he is the future of the franchise or not.

It’s not just if he is who they should move forward with, it’s also how much he is worth when moving forward.

We’ll see. I hope it’s clear cut after this season, but I expect him to be up and down a lot. And I expect his numbers to end up middle of the road.

Yep. Tannehill, Flacco, Garoppolo, Carr, Dalton...there are a ton of QBs that teams overpaid based on very limited info. The Colts now have 32-48 games to make a sound determination on Brissett OR an extra 16 games in 2020 to ease in a rookie QB with Brissett under contract at a reasonable figure.

Then cut bait after 2019. What is that cap hit going to prevent you from doing in 2020? They aren't backed into a corner, yet you act like they are.

I'm hoping against that as well, but Chaka and Spaceman are acting like Brissett has to be the starter in 2020 based on the contract he just signed. That simply isn't the case. The team will have the flexibility to go whichever route they want in 2020. I hope it isn't to settle for mediocrity at QB, but they can choose any route.

unfortunately I would guess this is the most likely outcome.

Yes, no doubt Colts were put in a tough position by the Luck retirement, and I can see how “any port in a storm” might be attractive so you try to lock down your newly promoted backup for an extra year. The strategy didn’t trouble me as much as what we paid, and we absolutely did have another option – to let him prove himself this year and to pay him the market rate after next season. Whether it was better or not is certainly debatable, but I prefer that scenario because (and for once I’ll get to use this rationale) we have plenty of cap space to work with, and I haven’t seen or read a whole lot which suggested that Brissett was all that promising a prospect (sure, the Colts’ brass has been pumping up the guy for a year or two, but I assumed a big chunk of that was to churn the trade waters). If the guy turned out to be the second coming of Peyton Manning, then we could easily pay him.

And I agreed with you on the Funchess signing – at least the part about the length of the contract. It was a bit out of character for Ballard, and while I had no objection to the player or price, I didn’t like that our upside would be limited to one year. Part of that is also that few of us, up to that point, had spent a lot of time watching Funchess so we had to trust in Ballard's talent evaluation.

I don’t see the Brissett situation as analogous, however. First, we've seen Brissett in action, both in 2017 (admittedly in a different system with different, lesser players) and in lots of preseason action since then. I've seen very few glowing reviews of his skills or performance, however.

Second, I don’t think our out-of-pocket costs would be much different under a wait-and-see approach (franchise tender scenario) than under the contract he just signed. He’d still end up with around $30 million for the next two years. And I disagree that a second franchise tender is untenable. It’s actually the third franchise tender which is nearly impossible except in the most extreme circumstances (as a practical matter, only a QB, and only someone like Peyton Manning, for instance). I recall posting the details here last season, but I ran a quick search to refresh my memory and the second year a 20% bump in pay, so it's expensive but workable. The third year is the GREATER of (1) another 44% bump in pay or (2) the average salary of the top 5 players regardless of position. So, applying these rules to the real world, if Brissett got $30 million the first franchise year, he’d get $36 million the second year, and a whopping $52 million the third year – all fully guaranteed.

I just think signing guys to big contracts with the idea that you can just cut them and absorb their cap hit if they don't perform is a good way of burning through all of your available cap space and getting little in return.

Do you have the contract details? If not, I don't know how you can say this. I saw a tweet earlier that said Brissett's cap hit this year would be something like $8.5 million. If that's the case, and the guy has a full $20 million guaranteed on the contract, the remaining $11.5M (plus whatever non-guaranteed salary he was already paid) will come home to roost when he's cut.

I gotta agree with Spaceman here.

I agree. I have never though of Brissett as any more than a QB2. Though his preseason performance along with Ballard, Reich and Sirianni's glowing adulation have me optimistic that he can be much more than that.

Let’s look at it based on the likely scenarios:

1) Brissett is great. Top 10 QB. Then the team has a bargain for 2020 and time to lock him up without resorting to the franchise tag immediately. Or they can make him prove he’s the real deal and franchise him the next season if necessary. Win for the team.

2) Brissett is a mid to low level starter. Game manager. The team has him locked up for one more year at about the appropriate price. They can cut him, trade him, or keep him for the next year while deciding how to move forward at the position. The team has some flexibility and some stability. Slight win for the team.

3) Brissett sucks. The team loses in that it spent money it didn’t need to, but the long term cap hit is minimal. Slight loss for the team.

The worst the team ends up with is some dead cap money for one year. The other scenarios are a win for them. Now play those same scenarios out without the extension. 1 and 2 get worse for the team IMO. The team is only better off if Brissett is really bad. And the worst case outcome for the team is much worse without an extension. Locking up Brissett to a market value deal after one decent season is the worst case scenario to me. Brissett would be paid on a projection of what he COULD become. It happens all the time with younger QBs. Doing that would have real long term consequences to the team. Way beyond the consequences of the extension he just signed.

I’m very surprised that you are ok with paying him market value after one season. That’s a risky proposition to me - unless he just sucks.

Ballard has never been and may never be in danger of burning through cap space, because of the way he structures the contracts.

This Brissett deal decreases that long-term risk. Instead of a 2nd and 3rd tag being in 2021-2022, they would now be in 2022-2023.

You also decrease the risk of Brissett having a good year, warranting a massive extension, and having that hanging over the franchise. Look at what happened with the Ravens and Flacco after their Super Bowl.

Yes, that would be an issue if they signed Brissett to a massive contract. You’re acting like he signed for what Jared Goff just got.

Here’s my problem with that analysis – it could apply to any fourth year QB. Why not argue just as passionately that we provide the same contract to Paxton Lynch then? Or how about Brett Hundley or Nathan Peterman? (I just looked up a bunch of backup QBs who all about the same age and scheduled to be free agents next year). Maybe we should lock one of them down with a big contract before they hit the market too.

All I’m trying to highlight by such a ridiculous idea is that the key difference is in the likelihood of each of the three outcomes you’ve identified, and back to my original point that Brissett hasn’t shown very much so far, so I don’t understand why we’re paying him like he has.

As far as paying him market value after one season, I largely agree with you on outside free agents. With an inside free agent who’s already been here for two years (and started one of those seasons), I lean more towards agreeing with Spaceman that one year should be enough to know what we’ve got with him.

Yes, but don't forget that by paying him now, before he's proven anything, you also remove the benefit of having a guy in his "contract year" and trying to put his best foot forward for possible free agency.

Well, Brissett got $28 million for one additional year. Looks like Goff got $134 for 4 additional years, or an average of $33.5 million per. Not all that different on a per year basis, actually.

smh

I'm done here

Are you serious?

I do not get why this is an issue. This will not hamper the team at all. We still have 51 million in cap space. It hurts no one. It is chump change to Irsay so it doesn't hurt him. It is really nice for Jacoby Brissett. Good for him. He seems like a nice guy and has been loyal to this organization. I'm pretty sure it engenders good will among players both on the team and in the NFL as a whole. I just don't see the downside. I think this team is fiscally very responsible and is in as good a position as any team to be successful long term.

Not that I'm a cap expert, far from it actually, but considering the Colts seem to be under the cap every year, why is it a big deal if he's getting this money? Is this going to somehow ruin any flexibility they have in the free agent market (something they never seem to use)? Will it prevent the Colts from signing one of their own players next season?

I am, as a counterpoint to Vevejones' comments about the benefits of paying the guy before he's proven much. If you're going to make a comment like that, I think you've got to look at what you lose as well to see if it balances out. I'm sure you'll say that you might not want to sign a guy long term if he only performs when he's about to get paid, which is true, but the opposite can also be true - if you fill a guy's pockets with money before he's had to prove anything, isn't there the chance that he'll lose some motivation?

Look, I have nothing against Brissett. I like the guy actually, and I certainly want him to succeed. Everything you say is pretty much true - it is unlikely to hurt us significantly (from a financial standpoint at least) if he doesn't work out, and he seems like a nice guy, and it may create some goodwill. But so would the same contract for $8-10M per year. I'm just saying I think, under the circumstances and with what we know as we sit here TODAY, it seems like an overpay. He may play well this season, or even great (I'm hoping he does), but it won't change this fact.

it's only a question of financial management. Yes, this one contract probably won't ruin our flexibility going forward. But I'm just trying to be vigilant against signs of overspending or waste. I am definitely 100% against the "well, we've got lots of cap space so let's not worry about it" mentality. It's kinda the like the idea that if you add up all the money some people fritter away every day on small, so-called insignificant purchases like cigarettes and Starbucks coffee, it ends up being a staggering amount over time. There is a lot of truth to that.

Love the sarcasm !!! :cool:

People question the goff contract also. We are tied to brissett for this and most likely next season. If he was signed 4-5 years at that rate I would be much less happy.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Its all monopoly money