Believe it or not, the Indianapolis Colts have a few bad contracts on the payroll right now.
General manager Chris Ballard has singlehandedly turned the Indianapolis Colts around with his tremendous drafting ability thanks to the team he’s assembled in the front office and scouting department.
However, Ballard has also dished out a few bad contracts since taking over in 2017. We know there are a lot of good ones too! We’re not knocking the guy. But it’s important we look at a few that the team might wish they could have back.
Thankfully, none of these have long-term debilitating implications on the payroll, but let’s discuss, shall we?
3. Jack Doyle
Though Jack Doyle has proven to be incredibly talented, the numbers just aren’t there.
Some are going to argue with this, but that’s the essence of this entire topic. What do we consider a “bad” contract. Well, one could say Jack Doyle signing a three-year, $24 million extension last year in December was a bit premature. He recorded just 43 receptions for 448 yards and four touchdowns in 2019.
He played in just six games in 2019, and has been way off the pace set by his big campaigns in 2016 and 2017. Though this move could be viewed as prudent since Ballard foresaw Eric Ebron leaving via free agency, the Colts then added Trey Burton in free agency. He’s no guarantee to contribute given injury issues of his own, but why bring in another starting-caliber player?
Doyle has an $8.5 million cap hit in 2020, which is the same as Zach Ertz, a player whose stats blow his out of the water. The Colts veteran has been in the NFL for seven seasons and really only has two good campaigns to show for it. Though the team has outs in the final two years of his deal, it’s reasonable to see why this may have been jumping the gun…
…even if they had the cap space to make it happen.
2. Philip Rivers
Like him or not, Philip Rivers is weighing down the Colts a bit.
We get the Colts needed a quarterback and had the cap space to pretty much do anything, but paying $25 million for Philip Rivers, who had just endured one of the worst seasons of his career despite being surrounded by weapons on the Chargers, isn’t the best use of money.
Rivers is clearly on the decline and it’s not like he’d be coming in to mentor an up-and-coming QB who’s ready to take over the starting job. The team just bumped Jacoby Brissett and took a chance on Jacob Eason. The former Chargers star is simply a placeholder who was meant to put butts in the seats for 2020, but that won’t even happen now.
If Rivers has been largely unable to take the good Chargers teams to the playoffs over the past decade, what makes anybody think he’ll be able to do it with a work-in-progress Colts offense? And for $25 million? TY Hilton is in for a rude awakening if he thinks Rivers will be hitting him with bombs deep down field.
1. Jacoby Brissett
At the start of the 2019 season, the Colts signed Jacoby Brissett to an extension.
At the time, this seemed like a fine deal. The Colts needed a quarterback, Jacoby Brissett proved he was capable of largely not blowing it, and he’s still fairly young, so there’s a lot of room to grow.
Ballard inked the former Patriots backup to a two-year, $30 million contract and he has a cap hit of $21.375 million for the 2020 season … and he’ll be sitting behind Rivers. That’s over $46 million to two quarterbacks who … aren’t very good. Not only that, but how in the world are you going to find a trade partner for a QB with a 12-20 career record and that cap hit?!
In short, it’s not going to happen. The Colts are stuck with these guys, and Brissett will only be disgruntled for the entire year unless Rivers misses the season due to injury. It’s just bizarre the Colts though it’d be worthwhile to invest this much money in Brissett after little success with the team … then yank the rug out from under him after he had his best year.
It wasn’t a great year, but it was far and away better than what he’s put together in the past. Now, on top of spending a ton of money on a whole lot of nothing, there’s a risk of negative headlines stemming from this problematic situation.