Colts first UFA WR Devin Funchess

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by rm1369

I absolutely believe Funches wants to prove his worth. That’s kinda my point.

Why wouldn’t he sign a guy to a one year incentive laden contract? He has to spend some money and this allows him to keep all that flexibility for next year. And he can wait on Cain, a rookie, or both.

There is nothing about the signing that says it’s a long term solution. Ballard constantly says he wants to build thru the draft. This fits perfectly with that. Could he be a long term solution? Possibly. But it requires him performing at a level that shows him as viable solution, but not so good that he gets priced out of the Colts range. That’s a pretty narrow window IMO. It’s way more likely that he either doesn’t perform well enough or he performs too well. In which case next year several of you will be asking who can blame Ballard for not giving crazy money to a WR after only one good year when he’s given way to much money by Washington or Oakland or Buffalo or the Jets.

Understood, those are some reasonable points, and I’ll admit that I don’t feel I completely understand this signing. On the one hand, I don’t see it as a “placeholder” type signing as you described it, because (1) Funchess was signed on the first negotiating day, so we obviously targeted him, (2) the dollar amount of the contract is high, and (3) he fills a specific position of need (big bodied outside receiver)

On the other hand, it’s also curious because we haven’t committed to him long term, and we didn’t get any option years, so those items support your argument. The lack of option years is notable in particular and unusual for Ballard except, as I’m sure you’ll point out, for Grant last year (and Slauson if I recall). However, neither of those deals was nearly as high profile as this signing, and both of those players were signed deep in the free agent period when the Colts had much more leverage. This might also be the only one-year deal announced yesterday, so it's unusual in that sense as well.

So I can’t quite figure it out. My best guess is that the Colts are suspicious of free agent wide receivers, having been burned by several over the last few years (Grant, Andre Johnson, Kamar Aiken, etc) and thus feel that it would be better to bring someone in for one year to see if they fit before making a long term commitment. If they do, it will end up costing them a bit more, but if it doesn’t work out they don’t get stuck in a large, long term, unproductive contract. However, this one year strategy wouldn’t be appealing to the uppermost tier of free agents who have the leverage to secure a long term guaranteed deal, but might be attractive to a slightly lesser free agent like Funchess who could have the hope of getting a big time deal next year with a productive 2019.

So, while all of this is just a guess of course, it really doesn’t feel like a placeholder-type signing to me. And I’ll admit that it is a little perplexing. Regardless, I’m still excited about this signing following the relative success of last year’s free agent crop. Funchess is a big-bodied 25 year old receiver who is heading into (rather than out of) his prime years, and Ballard has proven to be a strong talent evaluator – both in the draft and free agency. So I think there’s reasonable grounds to expect Funchess to play well and prove to be an asset to our team.