Nelson gets paid. per Schefter
 

https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/sta...pLcYDwUB2umv5w
The Colts tend to do very smart contracts, I hope this one is, that is a lot of money for an LG and he seems to have some back issues and that concerns me.

It was just a matter of time. Man was going to get paid. He was was on this tract since day one. He’s worth it

Yeah, they had to pay him. Dudes an all pro every year.

Glad it’s done

Who's next ??

Possibly Matty Ice?

Someone was going to pay him big money. Might as well be the colts

Won’t be until after the season but I’d wager either Kenny Moore or Okereke.

Here are more details about the contract:

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...n-nelson-deal/

I'm hoping Ngakoue has a season that makes us break the bank to keep him.

So, no car payment? Bet he drives a pickup? :cool:

For as much as it smashed the old record for Guards, it seems set up reasonably well for the Colts.

Big and well deserved payday for Nelson. I du no if it was this tired or another, but Ballard said he is one of the main reasons we are a physical team. A steal on draft day and a steal with this contract.

Seems too like Nelson could have fleeced Irsay for more and would have been paid. Nelson is a solid colt and future hof.

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It's a guard compared to a QB, I know... But considering Lamar Jackson just declined a $250m contract because he wants it to be fully guaranteed (thanks, Cleveland Browns)... this is a relatively easy contract to hand out.

If teams start caving and following Cleveland's lead, holy shit.

I wanted to bump this topic because it need to be mentioned....

Shouldn't a $20 milllion per year lineman, regardless of their position on the line, transform that unit as a productive one?
The Colts line has been pure trash this year even if Nelson himself hasn't been terrible.
Would this team be any worse up front if they had traded Nelson for a first rounder? Would the franchise have been better set up for next season with another first rounder? Especially given the fact that we are looking at likely a high 1st in the upcoming draft.

The question isn't weather you should pay your best guys. You should. But there should never be a single player that isn't expendable, either due to their high value or lake thereof.
The only scenario where taking Q as high as we did would end up biting us in the ass was if he ended up starting his career at an All-Pro level- which he did- and it painted us into a corner.
I thought the same about Leonard until I witnessed just how bad we are without him in the lineup. He clearly is a difference maker, and even if he ends up retiring before age 30 (which I expect), I think we need him on our team. But why? If we are going young at QB, we don't need stars, we need assets.
Ballard has proven that he is willing to pay his own guys- no need to beat the dead horse, as this point has been cemented into our locker room- maybe to the point where guys are getting complacent after getting paid- see B. Smith, R. Kelly, maybe Buck too.
This team desperately needs to be realigned, starting with the spine of our roster. Get something for our assets while they are still considered assets.

I disagree quite a bit. High draft picks and a brand new QB are flashy new toys, but gutting the team to get those new toys is just the wrong thing to do. Maybe if we are talking aging vets, but you mentioned guys in their prime. We need guys like that.

Do we though? I agree that teams need playmakers, but if we strip our current assets to stack on a rebuild with players at the right positions and age then we will no doubt find more guys like that.
Even moving on from one of Nelson, Leonard or Taylor could be enough to give us a franchise signal caller or a shot at one of the top ones in the upcoming draft. I would trade away any three of the players mentioned if it could guarantee as much. Furthermore, by the time we actually do get a franchise QB and fill our current holes, all of our "difference makers" will be too old to matter anyway. We need to re-align our roster with our goals. They never adjusted from what was built around Luck and the lack of a transition plan shows. Q was drafted for Luck and played up to his draft positions (maybe even exceeded it). When Luck split, we should have reprioritized everything and went all out for QB immediately including selling our all world guard to the highest bidder. Q was a luxury that we could afford to have with Andrew. Now is is a heavy saddle on a team that has no horses.

I agree that we should have went all in for a real QB when Luck retired, but the rest is what I disagree with.

Oh no! Nelson got paid!
Now it's his turn to join the half-hearted OL group of Ryan Kelly and Braden Smith and play soft to not get injured.

No left guard in the NFL is worth $20M a year.

I’m fine not paying a guard if we had someone else at a more important position to pay. But we don’t, so yeah, pay your all star guard.

Even if we are overpaying him it’s only costing the team a few million (2-3 at most) more than most would love. The issue we have drafted guys that appear to be motivated to get the big payday, not to win. It is to early to say anything about Nelson and Leonard got paid and got hurt. I’m looking at Smith (went from one of the best RT in the league to a turd, Kelly (was a top 10 center, no longer) and “I made a pro bowl Kenny Moore” who just keeps getting toasted since he decided he was underpaid. The thing Ballard kept preaching, getting self motivated ‘character first’ players, is where he has seemingly completely missed.

I'm sour on Reich these days, but I've always supported Ballard. That's changing though. I'm almost ready for a complete rebuild...again.

ballard has to do a better job of hedging his bets. he can get talent in the door but he is too against adding depth through free agency

I agree, but it's more than that. AC was going to retire 3-4 years ago. He should have drafted a LT back then. AC got talked into playing another year, and here we are in 2022 and we still don't have a decent LT. I have no idea what goes through Ballard's mind regarding WR. All I know is that he's in year 6 and we only have one good WR. The QB carousel since Luck retired...just on and on.
Colts have looked like garbage since late last year. Shit's just been adding up, and I'm getting tired of it now.

Look at all of the WR's that Ballard has brought in that actually play. All 6 ft to 6'5. all 205 to 225 lbs.

Not on small shifty guy that can play the slot. At some point you've gotta draft guys that can get open and stop looking at the measurables and the potential.

Draft football players for damn sake! I'll bet you that Ballard would have no interest in a young TY Hilton, were he on this years draft board.

I remember when Dallas Clark and Brandon Stokley were practically interchangeable in the slot and ran a route that became known throughout the league as "The Indy Route". I never see that route run by a Reich coached offense. Is that because we don't have the personnel to run it or Frank forgot about when he was At Indy in the mid 2000's?

How often do you see us run the 15 to 20 yd. out patterns, ever? It was a staple of this offense from Peyton through Luck.

I'm kinda watching Browns vs Steelers. The Browns o-line looks far better than ours, and Jacoby looks better than anything we've seen from Matt Ryan so far. Amari Cooper is having a decent game, and just his presence in the field requires the Steelers defense to pay attention to him and it helps open up the other receivers. He was available, but nooo...we can't have that. No defense is going to worry about Pierce, Dulin, or Strachan. I don't count Parris Campbell. Just some thoughts.

They could run those routes with Harrison, Wayne, Hilton, and Clark, they had the speed to stretch the play. They also had a better group of pass blockers.

This is the one thing I don't like about Ballard. He has a certain set of measurables that he thinks are mandatory for certain positions and he will NOT bring in a guy that falls outside of this unless one of his scouts absolutely goes bonkers to make a case for it. It does then mean that alot of really good "football players" have been skipped over in favor of guys who have certain traits but might be lesser players. Ballard would definitely NOT have drafted TY Hilton if he'd been here then.

He definitely wouldn't have, and I'd venture to say he probably would have passed on both Marvin and Reggie as well.

TY Hilton rarely had a good pass blocking group until he was past his prime.

The man is invisible and totally irrelevant. $20M/year. Dumb. What a mistake. Fire everybody.

He wasn't invisible when Autry made him his bitch at the beginning of the game :cool:.

...and we thank you for your support!
/Bartles and James
//80s

You mean the guy we let walk because he wasn’t an all American good guy, Captain America that would help change tires?

It’s about fuckin turnovers, shit killed us again today and Ryan has been in the league waaayyy to long to not understand the severity of those stupid ass mistakes

Yep. That would be the guy :mad:

Yep, he just joined the rich O-line club of players who are making big $$$ and just going thru the motions of playing crappy to not get hurt...like Kelly and Smith.