Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -2/25- Playing GM: Re-Signing Colts' In-House Free Agents

Episode Date: February 25, 2017

Setting up to get the offseason really rockin', Matt plays Chris Ballard. In the first of these episodes, Matt re-signs his version of the most deserving in-house free agents to be. #Colts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Talkspace.com slash boom B O O M. Hey guys, Matt Dainley. Uh, we don't often go outside of football on this show. Uh, but there's something that I wanted to pass along to a lot of you guys that maybe you guys don't know. Now, most of my listeners are from the Indiana area, uh, but some of you are from other states and cities, and for the most part, this is kind of a localized topic. If you guys have paid attention to the news at all, there was two young girls, 13-year-old Abby Williams and 14-year-old Libby German, who were murdered brutally in Delphi, Indiana, some 25 miles or so from me, a little bit northwest of Indianapolis as well. So these two girls were on a local nature walk basically around Delphi and came up missing

and later were found the day later. More than anything, what I wanted to get out to you guys was that there is a tip line and I'll also be playing the clip that the local police found this brave girl was able to turn on her phone recorder and took some video. She has a picture of the guy. You guys can check that out basically on any local news website around the area and see the picture that she took with her phone. They also, like I said, had an audio clip that she thought was smart enough to push record on her phone previous to her dying and recorded the perpetrator's voice. And it's not a great clip, but you can still tell that the guy's got a certain kind of dialect that some of you may be familiar with. Basically, this is to get this out in case any of you know this voice or anything else. murder of Abby Williams and Libby German. You can also call the tip line at 844-459-5786

or you can also email the information to abbyandlibbytip at c-a-c-o-s-h-r-f.com. That's Abby and Libby tip at C-A-C-O-S-H-R-F.com. There's also a regular 800 number that's 800-225-5324. If you guys have any information on this at all, please call the tip line. These families deserve the little bit of closure that they can actually get from this guy being caught. It's a horrendous act. And like I said, we don't typically go away from football, but this hits not only close to home because of the area that I live in, but because I have children right around this age,

and this despicable human being deserves to be behind bars. So if you guys can, either email the tip line or call the toll-free tip lines and give information if you guys recognize this voice now if you guys want to hear it again you can go to im.gov they've got a mp3 of it on their site as well. You can listen to that as often as you like to kind of get a gauge. If you know, you may know this person, please check out the picture as well to see if maybe some of you guys or any of you may recognize the person. All right. Thank you guys. Let's go. You are Locked On Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back to Locked On Colts, ladies and gentlemen.

I am your host, Matt Dainley. And thank you for here, for joining me on a Saturday. A little different than our normal setup, of course. But, you know, I'll take all the blame for not getting out of Friday's show. To be quite honest with you, I was absolutely spent last night and could not get one recorded. So, you know, things happen. Too many kids and a lot of stuff going on, but I simply could not get a show recorded last night, but did give you guys one for the weekend. So what we're going to do

with these next few shows is I'm going to go first through the Colts free agents that they, the free agents to be, if you will, and kind of discuss who I'm going to keep. I'm going to play GM for the Indianapolis Colts, and I'm going to go through these guys and I'm going to tell you who I'm going to keep, how I plan to sign them as far as what kind of money I'm willing to give them. And by process of elimination, you're going to find out who I'm not going to sign. I may give a couple words on why I don't plan to sign them or why I want to bring them back, but I may not go too far into financial reasons why either way with those guys. Some of them, you know, are going to be minimum salaries, you know, a million dollars or less, probably just guys you want to keep on the

roster for death at that time. But we're going to go through that. And then on the next show, I'm going to go through the free agent pool around the NFL, around the league that we don't know one way or another, whether they're necessarily going to be franchised or anything like that. But I'm going to give you some guys that if they're not to be franchised, these are the guys I'm going hardcore after and kind of what kind of money I'm willing to give to them. So we'll do that. And then I'm going to go through a three round mock draft on my own. I'm going to use one of the automated mock draft sites. I'm going to go through.

I'm going to kind of explain who's left on the board. I'll give you guys in the first round who was drafted before the Colts draft. And we'll go from there. It ought to be a little bit of fun. We'll kind of see what we've got on the payroll for next year. If I was a GM and right now and all things are the way they are currently, including free agency and all that good stuff. So first let's go through the Colts free agents here. Now the Colts have a kind of a bevy of free agents. You know, Robert Mathis is retired. DeQuell Jackson was released. Those two

don't count, obviously. Trent Cole, I'm not bringing him back. Plain and simple. 34 years old, going to be 35 next year. I'm certainly not bringing him back at what he made last year. If the Colts bring him back, that would be a super surprise. I'm not bringing him back. I just don't feel that he gave the Colts any sort of an edge whatsoever. Funny, no pun there with the edge, but I just didn't see what he did for the Colts at all. He was hurt a little bit, and even when he wasn't, he didn't really give any, he didn't bring any dynamic to the team, certainly not to the defense, of course. And I don't think that he was much of a leader necessarily. He was a leader by age. That would be about it. Now, so let's go on to Darius Butler.

Darius Butler, he's an intriguing one, one that I kind of feel, you know, I think I'm pretty sure in the past that I've said that we should kind of sign him. I thought that the Colts might want to bring him back for a safety point, but I'm really, you know, on the fence about this right now. And if I got to choose, I'm going to say no, that I'm not bringing Darius Butler back. 30 years old. Yes, he is solid in the slot. But the Colts are going to be revamping this secondary.

And I'm wanting to revamp it. I think Rashawn Melvin was a far better option than the majority of the Colts secondary last year. I think that he's a better option in the slot than Darius Butler right now. He's longer. He's more sticky. He's a better cover guy. He doesn't have to be able to play safety. That's not the issue. I don't think Darius Butler is strong enough, and I don't mean strong like physical strong, but I don't think his body will hold up playing safety. You saw when he came up and tried to make a few hits this past season, didn't work out so well for his body. His body's not meant to be a safety. He could be a ball hawk back there, but he's not going to last. And if you're going to bring him back, they're not going to bring him back at age 31 for more than a couple years. I'm not bringing him back at all. Let's not play the game. Let's just, you know, cut bait necessarily.

I like Darius Butler. I think he's a quality NFL player, but I definitely think that he's on not only his backside in his career, but I think he's about at the end of his rope as far as health goes. So not bringing him back. The ageless one, Mike Adams, 35 years old, going to be 36 next year. I was more tempted by Adams to bring him back than anybody as far as Darius Butler, any of these 30-year-old guys for the most part. But I just can't see it happening. I mean, they've got some options in the back. They've got Clayton Gethers. They've got TJ Green, although you don't have to be a fan of TJ Green. I'm not. But Mike Adams isn't going to be much back there.

Mike Adams, if anything, if they were to bring him back, would bring back the leadership aspect on this defense, which it's going to lose a ton of coming up. So I think that if they bring him back, that's why they bring him back and just say, look, you know, if you can stay healthy, that's awesome. But he's not going to stay healthy, folks. I mean, he's just he's been too lucky over the years. I mean, he's just been unbelievable how well he's played, which would typically make you want to bring the guy back, you know, for for a year, maybe or so with just a small guaranteed contract, but I don't see it.

I'm not bringing him back. I'm probably going to look to free agency or maybe in the draft for a replacement for him. They've got some options back there in the safety, and to me, for 2017, Mike Adams is not one of them. Jordan Todman. I'm not bringing him back right now. You guys heard me talk last year that I wanted him to get more opportunities. He was more dynamic than I thought Josh Ferguson was going to be. I didn't think Josh Ferguson was near the guy that they wanted him to be. And I thought Jordan Todman could be that guy.

He just didn't turn out to be that way. The way that everything's shaping up, deep class in the draft. There's a couple guys in free agency we may talk about in the next show. Right now, Jordan Todman doesn't have a spot on this roster. And until late, just before camp starts, he won't regardless. So for now, and probably for good, I'm not bringing Jordan Todman back. Chris Carter, 27 years old, outside linebacker. Young guy, no age concerns or anything like that.

He's been in the league for six years. Hasn't really made much of an impact anywhere, but he's got the right size. He's got the right build, you's got the right, uh, build, you know what I mean? For, for his age, uh, for, for the position, I he's somebody that's going to be brought back really cheap. So, um, I'm not going to waste a lot of time on him. I don't think a lot of us have seen much of him, but at the moment, regardless of what we do, I do in free agency and the draft, we still need depth at the position. We've got a couple guys we're going to talk about here in a moment, but he's just a guy that's

going to come back. He may end up on the practice squad, whatever, but we're going to bring him back on a very minimal contract. Next guy, Hugh Thornton, he's not coming back. I'm not going to waste too much time talking about him either. He is young enough. He was very inconsistent, never really did much. The Colts offensive line is shoring up right now. I'm probably going to do something down the road here to shore up the rest of it. As far as depth, it's going to be a nice little spot here in Indianapolis. This offensive line is going to be on the rise, especially in youth and in durability. Hugh Thornton really doesn't give anything towards durability, that's for sure. And he's going to go away. So Darryl Morris, I'm bringing him back again, similar to what I was

talking about Chris Carter. Darryl Morris played a lot last year. He's 26 years old. He's going to be cheap, under a million dollars, million dollars, whatever it is. That's really nothing for the moment. But I'm bringing him back because, like I said, he was a part of that with Rashawn Melvin. They got a lot of playing time. And he's definitely worth keeping on for depth. If he makes the roster, great. If he doesn't, he goes to the practice squad. Either way, he's worth a minimal contract on this team right now. So we'll go ahead and say we'll sign him just to kind of, you know, pass it along. So, so far I haven't kept anybody. Who am I keeping? Eric Walden, 31 years old, made $4 million a year. Every four, all four years he was in Indianapolis. I really, uh, you know, he's a

hard one to think about because he is 31. He did have the 10 sacks, you know, this past year, bar 11 sacks, sorry, but that wasn't his game. That's not what he's asked to do. Uh, a lot of his sacks, if we're being fair, were coverage sacks, were sacks where the quarterback stepped up into the pocket even and tried to break free of the pocket. And basically, Walden was running down the line of scrimmage and made the tackle, got him behind the line of scrimmage maybe a half yard or so, something like that. So those were the bulk of his sacks. So he's not a sack artist. You can't really say that he's, you he's on his way up or anything like that. But to me, he is worth keeping.

And he's worth keeping for a couple reasons. He is going to be cheap. I mean, look, if we're going to do this, let's do his year by year. In 2013, and this really matters now because the salary cap is so high, and I'm going to preach this a little bit. I think this is a more maligned way of thinking, is to understand how much the percentage of each contract is off the cap that year. You can look at the base or the average, and that kind of does the same thing. But at a year by year, you want to see how much that guy is taking of the cap, what percentage that guy is taking off the cap. In 2013, he took 3.25%. Now, naturally, his annual was very consistent for the most part.

It was $4 million a year. Even in the first year of his contract, they gave him basically bonuses to get him to $4 million. In 2014, that was 3%. So naturally, you see a bit of a decline here. 2.79 in 2015 and 2.58 last year. So the average of his cap percentage, the average of those three years, the cap percentage of his was 2.91%. At 2.91% of this coming year's cap, $168 million. That's $4.89 million a year for Walden. He is getting over 30. He's 31. He'll be 32 next year.

He doesn't deserve a major contract because of his age. We'll just say that. I'm going to give Eric Walden two years at just under $5 million, $4.9 million a year. And I'm going to give him that full contract or that first year guaranteed, take him completely off the books if I want to next year if he doesn't perform. But we need a guy who can do what he does. He's a true mean trenches type guy on the outside, if that makes any sense at all. I'm not sure that it does. But I think you guys understand what I'm saying. The guy will get down and dirty with just about anybody.

He's not the most effective edge setter. He's not the best. He's definitely not the pass rusher or anything like that. But you know, as strange as it may be, one of the guys who has some of the loose brains, uh, on the team sometimes is probably going to, we're going to need somebody with some sort of intelligence as far as how the position is played, you know, to stick around to help these young guys out, because there are going to be guys getting drafted, there are going to be guys coming in and free agency. And guys like him

with experience are going to be necessities, you know, it's just the way it is. So I'm going to go ahead and give Walden this contract now. And he's going to be at two years, 4.9 a year. I'm going to give him all 4.9 of that, maybe 4.6 of it, something like that, whatever, leave a couple hundred thousand on the books, just in case. And that we can cut him without real, any big issues next year. No big deal. So we got Walden on the books. Next guy come to to is Jack Doyle. Now, Jack made $1.67 million last year, and that is virtually nothing for as quality of a tight end as he is. Fantastic blocker, excellent receiver. It's not a dynamic route runner or anything like that, but he is precise.

And he has basically an 80% catch percentage throughout his career. He's amazing. Obviously, this past year, 75 targets, 59 receptions, almost 600 yards, five touchdowns, and just really a fantastic year all the way around for Jack Doyle. He is going to have a market for him on the free market. I mean, he is a quality tight end, guys. What do we do with that? Right now, SpotTrack has his value at 6.2. I'm not worried about that. That doesn't bother me at all. Does it bother you guys? I mean, a lot of you, I see that you guys are a little upset about, you know, I'm not paying him 6.2 million. He is by far our best tight end

guys. Okay. Now you can say whatever you want about Dwayne Allen's, um, contract about what he's making. Push that completely aside right now. We're not talking about Dwayne Allen. We're talking about Jack Doyle. Okay. So this is what we're doing. I'm signing Jack Doyle basically to what his market value is. Now, if it comes to where that can fluctuate, maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars or whatever, he wants to stay in Indy. Indy loves him. $6.2 million is 3.7% off the cap. That's virtually nothing.

So we're giving him that. I'm giving him that, and I'm giving him a four-year deal on that. And why am I giving him a four-year deal? Because Jack has proven that he is one of the most reliable tight ends in the league. He's not, like I said, the guy who's going to run the seam at a blistering pace. He's not the guy that you can necessarily line up outside or anything like that. He's not like the Dallas Clark necessarily, not built anything like that, of course, and that's not his game. But you can put him in the slot. You can stand him up just outside the line of scrimmage or just off of the line of scrimmage. And you can use him in a lot

of different ways. You can move him into the backfield, which offers Chudzinski a ton of versatility with the offense. He's too important to the offense, in my opinion, and I think he offers a great deal. And I don't think that that's too much to pay a guy who is that reliable. I just don't. So with him and Swoop on the roster, I'm really high on Swoop. I think Swoop's going to do great things in the future. He's going to be that maybe a little more dynamic version of these guys that they can sit up. He's a little speedier. He did a pretty good job running his routes last year, made some real nice catches. And then you've got Dwayne Allen on there who has the potential to be a really good tight end, but he simply is unreliable both in the game and even to be in the game. And if you got a tight end in Jack

Doyle, who's there every week, never hurt, and always productive, I'm giving him what he deserves. The Colts have, we have, a lot of money. They're not going to be huge players in free agency. So they need to keep the guys around that they can count on. You see Chris Ballard, what he did with tight ends in Kansas City. He kept guys, wanted guys on there that, you know, obviously you just don't get those dynamic guys like Kelsey or any of them. They're not exactly a dime a dozen. But you keep reliable guys around. And that's who Jack Doyle is.

I'm keeping him around. And it's going to be an average of 6.2. We're going to give him the market value that they've got for him right now. And that, like I said, that could fluctuate up or give or take a couple hundred thousand dollars. I'm not worried about it right now because he deserves it. He's going to be on this team. He's going to help Andrew Luck. He's going to help this offense. And he's most importantly going to help protect this offense and Andrew Luck as well. That's something that a lot of people may or may not realize how much he does. Next guy up, Robert Turbin.

Right now, Robert Turbin didn't make hardly nothing last year, under a million dollars. So he is a guy who is also one of those guys that you feel like you can count on him. He's a big boy coming in at 220, 5'10", kind of built perfect for this offense. And he's a little bit shiftier, I guess you could say, than maybe Gore was very productive this past season. I mean, you look at his numbers, and he had seven touchdowns out of the backfield. He had one receiving touchdown. He didn't have a ton of yards, didn't have a ton of carries, nothing like that. Three and a half yards of carry. No big, no big glaring, huge, like standout

statistics or anything like that. But the guy's quality, he's averaged over four yards a carry virtually every year of his career, never had more than 80 carries in a season. But look, that's what he is. He's going to be the backup or the third string guy. And for a million dollars or under, I'll take that. I mean, I'm about you guys, but that's virtually nothing off the cap. And that solidifies that backfield for the first time, because let me tell you, whether it's this coming free agency or whether it's in the draft or possibly both, we're getting one, you know, so that that's the way that's going to be. And that's the way it's going to end up. So that's who we got right now. And I'm going to give Robert Turbin that million dollars. Okay. We're going to just, we're going to keep it to where it's easy to count. We're not going to play a whole bunch there just to worry about hitting vet minimum and all that good stuff. We're done

with that, with the signings. The last little bit of a deal that we're going to do right now, Mr. Arthur Jones, thank you for your time. You've been injured. You've been useless. You're out. We're getting rid of Arthur Jones. That's going to free up some more money. The Colts now are going to have around $60 million. Now for the cap, taking these guys' contracts that we just gave out in order, and we got that extra money now from Arthur Jones being released, we've got $60 million minus $12.1 million that we just spent keeping some guys in. That's a little, you know, you can consider that a little expensive. That's fine. But that's three guys. That's at least two guys that I think are pretty important for this next year. That number

obviously is going to drop in half when you consider that you've got nearly $6 million that are probably going to come off the books the following season anyways without Turbin. I don't expect Turbin to be here from two more years, and I don't expect Walden to be here after next year. So we're giving him that two-year contract simply for space, a little bit of cushion just in case. So now that we have that money, we've got $47.9 million left, and we are getting ready to enter free agency. So Colts re-sign Walden at two years, $4.9 million. We re-sign Jack Doyle four years at $6.22, get his market value. And we re-signed Turbin for one and one. And now the Colts have 47.9 million in cap room. Still plenty of room to get a solid free agent or two or three and to see what we're going

to do with that. And then we're going to head into the draft and then that's going to be fun. So thank you guys for joining me in the next episode. Like I said, we're going to have, we're going to enter free agency and I'm going to go hunting after some guys to come in and fill this roster. So, uh, thank you guys for joining me. Please make sure to subscribe on iTunes. Also make sure you guys give me a rating and review.

Really appreciate those. Uh, if you guys didn't listen to the disclaimer, if you did, I mean, uh, please take heed to that. If you guys have any information or anything like that, please use that tip line or the email. It's a really sad situation, so I would appreciate that. I know the families do, and that community will especially. So thank you guys all.

I really appreciate it. And I will talk to you all next week right here on Locked on Colts. You are Locked on Colts, your daily podcast on the Indianapolis Colts, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day.