Free agents the Colts should target in 2016
By Evan Reller
The Indianapolis Colts will hit free agency with a much tighter check book, but that doesn’t mean they can’t make a few deals to bolster the roster with veterans.
The Colts were one of the biggest players in free agency last season, and didn’t get all that much return on their investments. GM Ryan Grigson missed on more players than he brought into the team last season. The good news is that Grigson is great at structuring contracts in a way that makes it easy for the Colts to get out from under them.
The cap is set to be $155.27 in 2016 and with that number the Colts will have about $25 million in cap space. There are also some moves they can make to save money too. The Colts can save another $11 million by cutting Trent Cole and Andre Johnson. They might throw in Bjoern Werner to the list of cuts and it will give them nearly $1.5 million more.
These moves would give the Colts roughly $37 million to play with in 2016, but that doesn’t mean they can just throw money around and make it rain on veterans again. Andrew Luck‘s upcoming deal is expected to be for somewhere between $20-25 million a year, meaning any long term deal can’t interfere with that. This is assuming that his contract is extended as Luck is set to make just over $16 million in 2016, meaning the Colts can just assume they have anywhere from $4-9 million less to spend in 2017 and beyond.
With that $37 million to play with, the Colts can still be competitive in free agency and bring in some talented players that can contribute this season. Today, we look at some positions the Colts might target based on need. Pass rush is still a critical need, but with a lack of players becoming free agents and not having the top end dollars to overpay these players with, we’ll skip that position today.
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