Flying Fungi

I will counter with:

I am grateful to have access to your expertise and appreciate the balance in your posts.

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AndyJohnson

Miguel,
Ignore them.
I imagine just about every poster on this board uses the information you work hard to provide.
You are as entitled to your opinion as anyone, and imo, MORE entitled to it on this board where you contribute so much.
My opinion has always been that you give an honest untainted opinion.
Since most of this board questions the Colts cap approach, and you are the most knowledgement person I know of regarding the cap, if your honest opinion is that the Colts cap management, while totally different from the Pats, seems to be working, I trust your opinion.
If that seems "Anti-Pats" unfortunately you get a backlash. I've always thought you were giving cap analysis, not 'supporting' the Colts.

AndyJohnson

I have not studied this at all, but here is my impression.

The Colts are putting some very large contracts out there. NFL contracts are typically heavily backloaded, and the Colts are no exception.
The danger in this is (IMO):
-If a player is no longer worth the big contract in the later years you would take a dead money hit to cut them
-If the player is still good, but the contract is excessive (I would imagine the reported Freeny deal grows to 15mill or so cap hits in the later years) you may not be able to afford him any longer. You could restructure, but create a bigger issue under #1.
-If you have too many highly paid guys, you must skimp on the rest of your roster. Typically, a few stars and a bunch of jags has not been a winning formula.
Those issues have led other teams into cap hell. My impression is that most cap hells came from overpaying old players on long term deals that they were no where near worth after a year or to.
Cap hell takes a long time to pull out of

My impression of the colts approach is that they are fine with a top eavy roster, with a multitude of cheap young players, late picks, UDFAs etc. I suppose they could go on doing this as long as the win the gamble that their stars will carry them.
Their biggest gamble, IMO, is when you have players with huge cap numbers, they better live up to contract, or you have very little room to manuever your roster and upgrade it.

I think time will tell. I don't think its a forgone conclusion that there is a cap implosion waiting to happen, but I think its a distinct possiblity.

DaBruinz

Again, the Pro-Bowl means very little other than a free paid vacation to Hawaii. Light was like the 3rd or 4th option at LT last year. When there is only 16 in your division, that's not saying much.

solman

I can't believe I have to weigh in on the side of a Colt.

Freeney didn't produce huge numbers last season because teams built their game plan around him. They did this because:

1. He is incredibly good and
2. The rest of the Colt's defense isn't.

I don't think that this is a bad deal for the Colts. It isn't a bargain, but the risk of an injury and/or diminished performance is mitigated by Freeney's extraordinary talent.

I'd like to see how the deal was structured. I'm guessing the cap hits will be something like: $6M, $7M, $11M, $13M, $17M, $19M.

Certainly this doesn't fix Indy's cap situation, but they are getting a HUGE amount of talent over two years compared to the $13M (guestimated) cap hit.

If the goal is to have 2-3 seasons of super bowl caliber teams, this was a very good deal. But I still don't think it will get the job done. (i.e. I still predict no more than 1 playoff win for the Colts over the next three seasons).

kurtinelson

Except for the Colts last year.

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AndyJohnson

Are you kidding?
The 3rd or 4th best player at a position in a conference is a very good player.
If any team had the 3rd or 4th best in their conference at every position on the field, they would be unbeatable.
And by the way, LT in the AFC isnt exactly a conference where being 3rd or 4th means you are behind 2-3 slugs.

AndyJohnson

One of the reasons I said typically. However, I dont think the Colts are exactly that description quite yet. They have a decent group of pretty good players that aren't the highly paid guys.
I think they are moving in that direction.
The best thing the Colts have done, IMO, isnt getting the stars put together, but they have done a good job with their late picks, and UDFAs.

RyanTheColtsFan

Our star DE is Robert Mathis.

Someone posted the stats from the last three years between the two.

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RyanTheColtsFan

I can't comment because I have no idea what they were thinking. I understand Freeney had a tremendous rookie and sophomore campaign but come on. This kind of cash for a guy who can't stop the run and hasn't had star sack numbers in years?

Colts fans hate me because I wanted to let Harrison play out his deal and walk. Same with Freeney. Neither are worth this much cash.

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"I think manning cooked a grilled cheese back there in the pocket" - roman_maroney in the pats/colts gameday thread