HEADLINES

Indianapolis Colts News & Rumors

Colts Reach Roster Max

August 31st, 2019 at 7:54pm CST by Zachary Links

The Colts reached the 53-man limit on Saturday by cutting a number of players, including running back Charcandrick West. West, who has been toggled on and off of the Chiefs’ roster in recent years, hooked on with the Colts less than two weeks ago. Despite the season-ending injury suffered by D’Onta Foreman, he wasn’t able to make the final cut.

Also among the cuts – J’Marcus Webb, one of the club’s Week 1 starting tackles in 2018. Webb’s season was mostly lost to injury, and he’ll have to hook on elsewhere for 2019.

Here’s the rest of the Colts’ moves:

Waived:

– S Micah Abernathy
– T Jackson Barton
– CB Jalen Collins
– WR Ashton Dulin
– G Jake Eldrenkam
– T Antonio Garcia
– DE Gerri Green
– DE Obum Gwacha
– K Cole Hedlund
– WR Krishawn Hogan
– CB Isaiah Langley
– WR Roger Lewis
– LB Skai Moore
– C Daniel Munyer
– DE Carroll Phillips
– DT Johnny Robinson
– DT Sterling Shippy
– G Nate Theaker
– S Jacob Thieneman
– WR Jordan Veasy
– QB Phillip Walker
– RB Aca’Cedric Ware
– RB Marquis Young

Waived/Injured:

– WR Penny Hart
– S Isaiah Johnson
– WR Marcus Johnson
– S Kai Nacu
– CB Shakial Taylor
– LB Ahmad Thomas

Released:

– TE Gabe Holmes
– DT Caraun Reid
– TE Ross Travis

Colts Trade OL Evan Boehm To Dolphins

August 30th, 2019 at 4:33pm CST by Andrew Ortenberg

The Dolphins are adding another interior offensive lineman. Only a couple hours after trading for guard Danny Isidora, Miami is now making a deal with Indianapolis to acquire center/guard Evan Boehm, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN.com (Twitter link).

Per Schefter, it’s for a conditional pick in the 2020 draft. Boehm was originally drafted by the Cardinals in the fourth-round back in 2016. He was waived just prior to last season, and ended up latching on with the Colts. He appeared in 11 games for Indy, making four starts when normal center Ryan Kelly went down with an injury. In 2017, he started eight games at guard for Arizona, so he has a decent amount of starting experience.

The Dolphins have had interior line troubles for seemingly forever now, so it makes sense why they’re making these minor moves. Boehm has valuable versatility and it wouldn’t be at all surprising if he sees real playing time for Miami given the current state of their offensive line. The Missouri product also spent a brief amount of time on the Rams’ practice squad last year before the Colts signed him.

Colts, Texans, Browns Lead NFL In Cap Space

August 29th, 2019 at 8:50pm CST by Ben Levine

On Tuesday morning, the NFL released a report of every team’s cap space. The total number accounts for the top-51 cap numbers on every team’s roster. Therefore, these numbers will naturally change before next week as teams set their 53-man rosters (although the 52nd- and 53rd-ranked cap numbers (and beyond) for each team will hardly change anything).

It’s also worth noting that there have been a handful of extensions, trades, signings, and cuts since this report was released. However, there weren’t any significant moves that would drastically alter these rankings.

Why are these numbers important at this time of year? Well, rosters will be trimmed on Saturday, meaning an influx of players will hit the open market. While we can’t imagine any roster casualties earning a lucrative contract from a new team, these numbers can help illustrate the monetary advantage one organization has over another. These numbers are also useful in regards to any potential trades or extensions.

With help from TheMMQB.com’s Albert Breer on Twitter, we’ve listed the league’s cap space totals (as of Tuesday morning) below:

  1. Indianapolis Colts: $56.6MM
  2. Houston Texans: $37.0MM
  3. Cleveland Browns: $34.6MM
  4. Dallas Cowboys: $26.1MM
  5. Tennessee Titans: $26.0MM
  6. San Francisco 49ers: $25.5MM
  7. Buffalo Bills: $23.3MM
  8. Miami Dolphins: $22.1MM
  9. Chicago Bears: $22.1MM
  10. Washington Redskins: $21.7MM
  11. Detroit Lions: $21.5MM
  12. Kansas City Chiefs: $21MM
  13. Cincinnati Bengals: $19.7MM
  14. Seattle Seahawks: $19.5MM
  15. Philadelphia Eagles: $18.6MM
  16. Jacksonville Jaguars: $18.2MM
  17. Oakland Raiders: $17.3MM
  18. Los Angeles Chargers: $16.4MM
  19. Green Bay Packers: $15.2MM
  20. New York Jets: $14.9MM
  21. New England Patriots: $14.1MM
  22. Baltimore Ravens: $13.4MM
  23. New Orleans Saints $7.5MM
  24. Carolina Panthers $5.9MM
  25. Los Angeles Rams $5.6MM
  26. New York Giants $5.5MM
  27. Pittsburgh Steelers $4.9MM
  28. Minnesota Vikings $4.7MM
  29. Arizona Cardinals $4.7MM
  30. Denver Broncos $4.4MM
  31. Tampa Bay Buccaneers $4.3MM
  32. Atlanta Falcons $3.4MM

Colts Interested In QBs Brandon Weeden, Matt Cassel

August 29th, 2019 at 8:41am CST by Zachary Links

The Colts are leaving no stone unturned in their pursuit of quarterback help. In addition to Brock Osweiler, the Colts also met with and worked out Matt Cassel and Brandon Weeden, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (on Twitter) hears. 

At this time, the Colts are still unsure about which QB they’ll sign. It’s also possible that Indy will wait to see how cuts shake out over Labor Day Weekend – there could be several experienced signal callers available from which to choose.

The Colts’ QB room, of course, was shaken up when Andrew Luck abruptly announced his retirement from the NFL. That left Jacoby Brissett, a solid QB in his own right, as the club’s new starter. For now, Chad Kelly stands as the team’s QB2, though his two-game suspension will require another passer to step in, at least as a stopgap solution.

Cassel, 37, spent last season as Matthew Stafford‘s backup in Detroit. He threw a grand total of 17 passes in 2018 and has made just two starts in the last three years.

Weeden, who will turn 36 in October, has split time with the Cowboys and Texans in recent years, though he did not take the field in 2016 or 2017. The former first-round pick has a career 6-19 record with most of those appearances coming with the Browns in his rookie season.

Colts Meet With Brock Osweiler

August 28th, 2019 at 12:35pm CST by Zachary Links

The Colts are on the lookout for quarterback help following Andrew Luck’s retirement. On that front, they met with free agent Brock Osweiler on Tuesday, a source tells Field Yates of ESPN.com (on Twitter). 

Osweiler, 29 in November, first made a name for himself as he filled in for Peyton Manning during the 2015 season. The QB went 5-2 in his starts that year and parlayed that showing into a four-year, $72MM deal with the Texans in 2016. After an interception-laden Year One, he was pawned off on the Browns, who then released him before the start of the 2017 season. That led him back to Denver for a year, then over to the Dolphins in 2018. Over the last two years, Osweiler owns a 2-7 record with nearly as many interceptions (nine) as touchdowns (eleven).

Osweiler’s resume is less than sterling, but the Colts view him as a potential candidate to hold the clipboard for new starter Jacoby Brissett.

Colts Trade Nate Hairston To Jets

August 28th, 2019 at 11:26am CST by Zachary Links

The Colts have agreed to trade cornerback Nate Hairston to the Jets, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN.com (on Twitter). In exchange, the Jets will send a 2020 sixth-round pick to Indianapolis. 

The Jets had two sixth-round picks thanks to the Darron Lee trade, but the Colts will receive the lower of the two in the swap, Rich Cimini of ESPN.com tweets.

The Jets’ need for cornerback help has been well-documented and they’ve addressed that need somewhat by acquiring Harrison. He’s not a star player, but he does have eleven starts to his credit over the past two years. He’s also under contract through 2020, giving Gang Green an opportunity to keep him in the fold beyond this season.

Harrison, by all accounts, had a solid camp, but the Colts’ logjam at cornerback allowed them to deal from a surplus. They’ll pick up a late-round draft choice for the 25-year-old and the Jets will plug him into their depth chart as a versatile cornerback/safety option.

Minor NFL Transactions: 8/26/19

August 26th, 2019 at 3:56pm CST by Zachary Links

We’ll keep track of today’s minor moves here:

Buffalo Bills

Cincinnati Bengals

Cleveland Browns

Detroit Lions

Houston Texans

Indianapolis Colts

Miami Dolphins

New England Patriots

New Orleans Saints

New York Jets

San Francisco 49ers

Colts Considered Delaying Luck’s Decision

August 26th, 2019 at 7:48am CST by Zachary Links

Before Andrew Luck officially retired from the NFL, the Colts considered a plan that would give the quarterback a chance to reverse course. There was a discussion in the Colts’ front office about placing Luck on injured reserve in order to postpone his final decision, ESPN.com’s Ed Werder tweets. 

[RELATED: More Fallout From Andrew Luck’s Retirement]

Of course, that’s not what transpired – although it wasn’t an easy call, Luck was firm in his decision to walk away from the game in his prime years. Plagued by an incomprehensible amount of rehab and physical pain, the former No. 1 overall pick is walking away from the NFL to focus on other interests.

From a football perspective, the Colts are in better shape than most other teams would be in this scenario. They are very are high on their new QB1, Jacoby Brissett, though they may need to find a new QB2 to backstop him. As of this writing, Swag Kelly stands to be Brissett’s backup, though he’ll first have to serve a two-game suspension.

More Fallout From Andrew Luck’s Retirement

August 25th, 2019 at 7:58pm CST by Andrew Ortenberg

Earlier this morning, we brought you all the fallout from Andrew Luck‘s shocking decision to retire. Not surprisingly given how big of an event it was, there’s now even more fallout to cover. One of the nuggets we heard earlier was how the Colts weren’t going to try to recoup any of the money from Luck’s contract that they could’ve under the CBA. If they had chosen to, they apparently wouldn’t have faced too much resistance.

Luck “was open to returning at least a portion of the money that had been paid to him,” a source told Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports. Colts owner Jim Irsay ultimately declined, and let Luck keep a whopping $24.8MM that he could’ve gotten back. Robinson speculates that Irsay could’ve made the call as a gesture of “good will that keeps a door open should Luck ever recuperate physically and hope to return to the NFL.” That’s certainly a reasonable take considering Irsay not very subtly indicated he was hoping Luck would change his mind during his own press conference.

Here’s the latest on everything related to Luck:

  • There’s been some slight confusion over the timeline of Luck’s decision, and Stephen Holder of The Athletic sought to clear the air (Twitter link). After speaking with sources, Holder writes that he is “now even more convinced in the timeline that Luck and Colts laid out last night. Luck was working toward a return and the Colts fully expected that return to happen.” There have been some rumblings that Luck was considering walking away further back, but Holder doesn’t believe that to be the case.
  • If Luck does want to come back, it isn’t going to be in 2019. The Colts have officially placed him on the reserve/retired list, which means Luck would have to clear waivers to come back this season, according to Mike Garafolo of NFL Network (Twitter link). As Garafolo points out, that would never happen. Rumors will likely swirl for years to come about a potential Luck comeback, but the door seems to be slammed shut on 2019 at the very least.
  • It was only a matter of time before someone brought this up. In an article from early this afternoon, Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com floats the possibility of Luck playing in the XFL. The reason this connection was always going to be made by somebody is that Luck’s father, Oliver Luck, is the commissioner of Vince McMahon’s upstart league. Florio himself acknowledges the idea is far-fetched, and it’s hard to imagine any scenario that it happens even though the ten-game season would be less taxing on his body. For starters, Luck would have to receive permission from the Colts to play in another league since he’s still under contract, and that seems extremely unlikely to say the least.
  • Luck’s sudden retirement sent shockwaves around the league. To get a sense of what other organizations were feeling, Mike Sando of The Athletic talked to coaches and executives around the league about his decision. One exec compared Luck’s handling of the situation favorably to the way Brett Favre handled his multiple retirements. “Completely healthy, Favre makes the Packers wait, he’s down in Mississippi, he’s taking private jets and has trouble deciding, and finally they trade him,” the exec said. “Luck was straining through rehab and probably going to all the meetings. He had to face the cameras and get booed instead of keeping it quiet and making the decision after the season if he has to sit out. This is much more courageous. This is what defines him.”

 

Fallout From Andrew Luck’s Retirement

August 25th, 2019 at 10:48am CST by Rory Parks

Andrew Luck‘s decision to step away from the game of football at the age of 29 will go down as one of the most surprising retirement decisions in the history of the league. But in his impromptu press conference last night, Luck kept using the word “exhausted,” as Zak Keefer of The Athletic observes. Luck’s latest health concern, a calf/ankle ailment, was just part of that exhaustion.

Keefer sums up Luck’s run of major injury woes over the past few years quite nicely. As Keefer writes, Luck “once played an entire quarter against the eventual Super Bowl champs with both a lacerated kidney and a partially torn abdomen muscle – and led the Colts to a win. He played half a season with torn cartilage in two ribs. There was an injured thumb, a bum ankle, at least one diagnosed concussion and the torn labrum in his throwing shoulder that nearly cost him his career at age 28.”

All of those issues forced Luck to move on to the next chapter of his life much sooner than he wanted. Anyone who watched his presser could see the anguish in his face, how his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, and how painful it was for him to make this decision. But as Luck himself said, “[i]t’s been four years of this injury-pain cycle. And for me to move forward in my life the way I want to, it didn’t involve football.”

Here’s just some of the fallout from Luck’s stunning announcement:

  • Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reports that Luck and the Colts have reached an agreement wherein the team will not attempt to recoup any money to which it would be entitled under the CBA. As Joel Corry of CBS Sports notes, the team could have recovered $24.8MM from the former No. 1 overall pick ($12.8MM of the $32MM signing bonus he was entitled to under his current contract, plus two $6MM March 2019 roster bonuses). If the Colts did seek repayment, any money they got back would have counted as a salary cap credit (Twitter links). Colts fans are already taking plenty of heat for booing Luck during the team’s preseason game last night — which Luck admitted was hurtful — and it would not have been a good look if the team were to try and seek repayment (especially in light of how the club mismanaged his early career, as Conor Orr of SI.com summarizes).
  • The Colts are high on their new QB1, Jacoby Brissett, but as Stephen Holder of The Athletic says, the team needs a veteran signal-caller behind Brissett, and it’s likely that GM Chris Ballard is already working feverishly to make a move. Indianapolis has enough draft capital to swing a trade of some kind (Twitter links).
  • Indianapolis may well remain competitive with Brissett at the helm, and Matt Miller of Bleacher Report says team brass does not believe the Colts will be drafting high enough in 2020 to land one of next year’s top QB prospects (Twitter link).
  • Colts owner Jim Irsay sounds like a man who hopes that Luck will unretire at some point. Irsay said, “[y]ou know, I don’t rule it out. Because as quickly as this thing sort of descended on us, and as mysterious as it was coming upon us, it could leave the same way” (h/t Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk). It was clear that Luck had thought long and hard about his decision, so as shocking as his retirement is, it would be even more shocking if he were to return to the field as a player. But Irsay is not ready to give up hope.
  • Irsay estimates that Luck left about $500MM on the table by retiring early given the ever-increasing QB salaries and the $64MM he was already due under the remaining three years of his current deal. As Mike Garafolo of the NFL Network tweets, that’s probably an accurate assessment. But if Luck is willing to walk away from that kind of cash, it seems as though he really is retired for good.
  • Luck’s contract will toll, so if he were to reverse course and come back, Indianapolis would hold his rights for three more seasons, as Chris Mortensen of ESPN.com reminds us (via Twitter).
  • We heard last night that the Colts had known for at least two weeks that Luck was seriously considering retirement, but Ballard says that Luck only began discussing the possibility with the team Monday (less then a week ago), as Albert Breer of SI.com tweets.
Load More Posts