JR4

Manny just couldn't do without him
What Manny wants .... Manny gets ... (except a ring )

flutie2phelan

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Patsfanin Philly

I don't think so. It cost them $8M to franchise him IIRC (top 5 or 120% of last year's salary) so it would jump to 9.6M this year and even they can't afford that....
One interesting thing I hadn't realized
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2317349

Since 1999, the Colts are 77-35 -- 70-26 when he (James) plays, 7-9 when he doesn't, according to the Star.
Rhodes is good but it will be interesting this year when teams don't respect the play action as much and sit back waiting for the pass.......

MoLewisrocks

I believe the tag on Edge would be even higher - he actually got $9.1M last year due to some incentive bonus he'd triggered. So his tag this year might be approaching $11M. I think that is why they never planned to tag him this year. In fact last year they had initially hoped to tag and trade him but their were a few too many viable RB available in the draft and they never got a decent offer even after Rosenhaus signed on as his agent.

pats1

If the season started today, the Colts would have the following starters, with the bold showing a difference from last year.

QB - P. Manning
RB - D. Rhodes (E. James and J. Mungro are UFAs)
WR - M. Harrison
WR - R. Wayne
WR - B. Stokely
TE - D. Clark
TE - B. Fletcher

LT - T. Glenn
LG - R. Lilja
C - J. Saturday
RG - J. Scott
RT - R. Diem

LE - J. Thomas (R. Mathis is an RFA and R. Brock is a UFA)
RE - D. Freeney
DT - C. Simon
DT - M. Reagor (L. Tripplett is a UFA, but doesn't start anymore)

OLB - J. Goddard (D. Thornton is a UFA)
MLB - T. Hagler (G. Brackett is an RFA and R. Morris is a UFA)
OLB - G. Gardner (C. June is an RFA)

CB - N. Harper
CB - J. David
S - B. Sanders
S - M. Doss

K - D. Rayner (M. Vanderjagt and J. Cortez are UFAs)
P - H. Smith

SoonerPatriot

They're probably going to go the budget route with their running game.
That offense isn't the same without James who is a superb back. They'll try to plug Rhodes or some rookie in there and quickly realize it was a mistake.

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Celebrating the wonders of the ignore list.

workhorse

While I agree that they Colts would be much better with James, than without him. I can understand why Wayne is the one in a chosen in a difficult situation. It took the Colts a loooong time to find the complimentary number 2 WR to Marvin and if Reggie hits the FA market, he was going to get #1 money thrown at him by someone. Edge is going to be difficult to replace, but the RB market value is down and the Colts can't afford what Edge wants. Though if a new CBA gets worked out soon, I would not be surprised to see Edge get resigned eventually. I don't think that a rookie will come in a not miss a beat, but teams like Dallas with Julius Jones and Marion Barber the past two seasons have shown that even RBs that aren't top picks can perform well.