TomDiggs

I'll take the Falcons and if we have to double up on teams let me know and I will grab another

I haven't been super active but usually this time of year is when i am most active and excited. And this was a lot of fun last year so count me in as coming back. Doesn't matter to me who I am assigned. Last year I had Washington so if i can navigate a Dan Snyder team (at the time) then I can handle anyone lol Hope everyone is doing well!

I’ll say from what I read he’s been sought after for years and resisted the urge to jump to the pros until now. I also saw that Saban tried to get him at one point too. If you wanna know about how people feel about him look him up. There are a ton of posts about how sad people are he’s leaving Pitt or doom and gloom now that he’s leaving. Don’t see any of those “good riddance” type of messages. seems like an incredibly solid hire.

I always find analysis fascinating if only because you can always seemingly find metrics to support whatever narrative you want to tell. Oh the Colts are top-10 or Top-5 in sacks. But the Colts are bottom 10 in pressure rate. But then the Colts are top-10 as a team in PFF pass rush grade And the Colts finished top-5 in Pass rush win rate. (https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/38356170/2023-nfl-pass-rush-run-stop-blocking-win-rate-rankings-top-players-teams#teams) At the end of the day, I am all for looking for what is deemed an upgrade. Hell, I was speculative of Sparano Jr when hired and he turned the same OL group we had into a much better group. So I am hopeful. Especially with some of the talent on that DL that should keep ascending. But I am admittedly not certain that Todd Wash is that guy. And for all intents and purposes he will likely at least be the first person linked to the opening.

As a follow on Cody Felger added this tidbit, which in context also makes some sense:

I definitely found this a bit odd. Earlier this offseason Zach Hicks hinted that the Colts might make a move to bring in more of a vet presence at DL coach. Cited names like Todd Wash and Brentson Buckner. Still a bit surprising since the Colts have been a top-10 sack unit under Ollie's guidance the last two years and finished w the Indy team sack record this past year finishing top-5 in the NFL. I wonder what they are looking to do differently or what direction they are heading in as a result here. Will be curious to hear more in the future.

I found this graphic both fascinating and super informative in terms of how we are doing in the trenches. Takes both PFF grade and ESPN win-rate into account. (clink twitter link to see it bigger. The small image is just a preview and doesn't do it justice) Bottom line: Colts are above average in pass protection and pass rush (wow!, for once) and are straight up elite in run blocking and run D. Very telling that on the run blocking and run D front, the Colts and Eagles are almost a direct overlay on each other. Steichen's staff and schemes are somehow not getting enough credit, despite the kudos they are already getting. They are basically taking the same offensive line and almost the same defensive front and making them worlds better than last year. It may only be two games, but so far this team's future looks echelons brighter than it has in a long time.

Smith was having a go of it but i will say this.....he was often times matching up w Allen, who was an absolute game wrecker yesterday. Allen ended up w a top-10 Edge grade for the week at 86.9. So Smith had his hands full and had to also deal w the least reliable and least effective member of our line playing beside him too. I will also say this, on at least one of the sacks he "allowed" he did a great job of running the defender (Walker) off and past where Richardson was set up. AR should have been able to step up and dump it off. Instead the defender looped around to complete the sack. Braden did his job and it still resulted in a sack. That is probably the type of play PFF doesn't ding him for. The potential is high for this unit if they can just settle RG. But I am not very hopeful about that since we have known that all off-season and have not seen moves made. Maybe Sills can be an answer, but I am not sure. And there is a complete and total void of quality OL play across the league. So many teams are hurting for OL talent, so there is not much just hanging out there to solve issues sadly. Note: this is the video of the Walker sack on Braden. https://www.nfl.com/videos/travon-walker-flies-past-braden-smith-to-sack-richardson No way this is on Braden. The ball is snapped from the 19. He runs Walker past the QB back at the 8 yard line back 11 yards behind the line of scrimmage. At that point (6 second mark) Richardson steps up and has a WIDE OPEN RB in the flat to his left with no defender within 15 yards. He also has another WIDE OPEN receiver across the middle at the 24 with no defender within at least 8 yards. You do not get more wide open for either dump off. And yet he took a sack there. That is stuff that will be cleaned up in time.

For all of those saying the Colts "low-balled" Hunt or whatever other narrative you want to play out in your mind, it was reported that basically the Colts' offer was already better than the Saints' offer. We knew that when they called to get him up here during his Saints' visit. That said, one of the Saints' beat writers confirmed it. Basically, the Saints and Colts offers were similar but sounds like the Colts had more guaranteed money and didn't backload it like the Sants did. Definitely seems like Hunt visited, got our offer and now is basically wanting to take other visits to other interested teams and shop our offer around to see if he can beat it. It is what it is. These vets that are unsigned will start signing soon since camps and off-season activities are mostly over as pre-season games kick off and prep for the season in truly here now. So we will see where people land in short order.

I think the agent switch is one thing but the bigger thing was the RB conference call that was had. Back in April, guys like Saquon, Jacobs and Pollard were all franchise tagged. There was still some hope that they would get their big long-term contracts before the July 17th deadline. When that deadline came and went and none of them got a deal and they saw the landscape of the RB market, things changed and they had that conference call. It was basically shortly after that time that most likely the trade request came in and all this drama escalated. I said it in another post and others touched on it here, but JT is carrying the flag for all RBs it seems in trying to re-set the market and trying to fix a downward RB trend that the league has had coming for awhile. And he is getting steamrolled as he tries to do this. Just totally unfortunate.

Btw, I was trying to find the exact Saquon quote, but couldn't find where i read it prior. Anyhow it came up in Peter King's FMIA last night... so referencing it here. (https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/fmia/news/jets-bills-aaron-rodgers-peter-king-fmia-training-camp) Anyhow, when he accepted his 1 year modified tender they asked him about not "holding out" and this is what Saquon said: "If I sat out this year and we didn’t have a good record, do you think that’s gonna make another team in free agency or the Giants want to have me come back the next year after I sat out a whole year? ‘We want to give you $15 million a year now.’ I don’t think that’s how it’s going to work." - Saquon That is spot-on and exactly the type of thinking JT should be having. The fact that he seemingly isn't is where he is being led in bad faith by those around him in my humble opinion.

Some folks have touched on this but i dont know if anyone really dug into this. As much as this clown agent and his "bad faith" "$20M+" promises might or might not have been to blame, the real driver here was the RB coalition call. Interesting that guys like CMC, Henry, Saquon, Jacobs, Ekeler, etc are all leading that but JT is the flag-bearer as the young guy trying to fight the fight for them all. JT is getting used. Bigtime. Badly. Some of these guys' career earnings to date: Henry- $46.3M CMC- $53.6M Ekeler- $20.9M Saquon- $40.6M Jacobs- $11.9M (plus his $10M tag outstanding) D.Cook- $34.4M Najee- $8.8M JT- $6.2M JT has made a ton less than all but Najee. And you do not see Najee holding out. He is playing this year for his $2.4M in cash JT is the one bearing all the burden here. And he is being used to make a statement and is going up in flames over it. At the end of the day, the most likely outcome to me is still him playing. But I would not be surprised one bit if he plays and gets a minor injury and basically shuts down. So he gets his full $4M+ and accrues a year of service and then saves his body and the carries/wear and tear. That is why this is truly a no-win scenario now. Only other outcome that makes any sense at all for JT is to: 1) play it out and hope you ball out and so does Pittman and the Colts can only tag one of you and maybe you get away if they have to tag Pittman 2) you make yourself such a cancer/headache that you get to where the team sees you as "addition by subtraction" and you get out of indy and then you use this year to prove your value somewhere else and rehab your image. You "accept" a trade somewhere without the guarantees of a new contract but with the stipulation you cannot be tagged and you ball out for someone else and try to get you bag next year. Just very poorly played by the JT team. And for all those critical of the Colts, this is playing out on Twitter and in the public eye now to save face. It sounds like it was being done behind the scenes until it wasn't. Now it is damage control in re-taking charge so that you don't have players trying to hold the organization hostage in the future and if they try they can look back and see this did not help on the player's end and they should go about it a different way. Just my two cents.

I thought of this as a potential option when stuff first started. But almost no way now. Hunter was odd too....he was set to make $4.9M and the Vikings gave him $17M with another $3M in incentives AND a no tag clause to report this year. Hunter won that big-time. JT has zero leverage here. He could maybe maybe maybe get a Saquon type deal where there's a small sweetener. But no way the colts give up the tag provision and no incentive for them to give him any big money when he has almost no options. Just ugly.

Agreed w this take in general. But Mainly because I think the NFL has learned from the Le’Veon Bell situation. for what it’s worth, Bell sat a year. He had made around $16M for his entire career in five years before sitting a year. Then he got another $27M the next two years he came back from the jets before he was done. And he was never the same player. so he got his money in the end but probably could have earned a lot more just staying put and continuing down the path he was on. history exists for us to learn from it. That’s literally the entire point of people studying history lol JT is taking a page out of the wrong book if he even considers sitting. Not to mention the contract tolling. but make no mistake , if he sits everyone loses. His value continues to plummet in any trade. His loses a year of earnings and a better chance at a payday. but if he was LeVeon 2.0 he’d likely be content w that $27M he got for two years. Lol i just think like you suggested that he can’t be Le’veon 2.0 because no team is gonna make the jets mistake if he sits. He needs to go the saquon route and just show up and maybe even ask for a little more guaranteed this year. Saquon got like an extra $1M. And yes that’s a tag and not under contract like JT. But man he probably has to either suck it up and play or scrape for any tiny win he can get such a sucky situation all around.

The JT thing is so messed up (just from a common business sense standpoint). He's a legit smart kid. His agent is a clown (lots of old tweets of his are popping up that are baddddddd). Sure, his agent got Leonard his money, but this is just not smart. Do the simple math. Current franchise RB tag: $10.1M In this current market if you use that number and then factor in a tag at 1.20X and 1.44X it (the going rate for double and triple tagging) then that would be 2023: $4.3M (last yr of rookie deal) 2024: $10.1M 2025: $12.1M 2026: $17.4M 4/$44M Even with high estimates of next year's RB tag possibly rising to the $13M range due to the taggings of guys this year that would be: 2023: $4.3M 2024: $13.0M 2025: $15.7M 2026: $22.6M $4/$56M So the absolute most you could reasonably expect is a 3 year extension at around $40M-$52M and that is like max max max. Which the Colts would never do because you can simply tag him yearly and pay the same figures with little to no risk. No dead cap. No risk of paying an injured player and seeing him not re-live his previous elite level (like we have seen a bit Q and Leonard). The truth is JT is probably a great comp to Nick Chubb. Similar skills and value. Chubb got 3 years and $36M at the peak of the RB market that has since tanked. If JT got a 3 yr extension for $36M that would be like being tagged 3 yrs in a row at today's rate. And probably more than fair. He clearly wants more. The Colts won't pay more. Smart. In the end, if JT does what Le'veon did he will regret it. More likely he eventually honors the deal and plays and tries to ball out or he signs a slightly enhanced deal like Ekeler and Barkley did to just play this year like he should. The reality is if he were smart he would have kept quiet, balled out and then hoped that Pittman did the same. Colts would only be able to tag one of them. Instead this just got super ugly.

Ill do my best to roll w whatever works for the league. Time-wise, anything in the range of 6pm-8pm ET is tough for me since that is dinner and putting to bed time for my 5 and 1 year old. So even a shift to 8pm ET or 9pm ET on any day will work for me. Considering our draft typically took around an hour or so I would hope that wouldn't put us on too late. Otherwise i would have to vote for something midday like the 20th and 26th listed. But I recognize i am just one of many.

Not disagreeing with your sentiment. Since i clearly stated it's hard to feel bad for him after what he did right after i said that. That being said i meant "tough break" in the literal definition of the idiom. As in "An adverse circumstance resulting in misfortune or hardships". I totally get if you are focusing on the "bad luck" type of aspect of it then there isn't any tough break in any fashion. That was not my intent w the statement. Clearly, luck had nothing to do with this. It was all stupidity and defiance as it appears currently. Just clearing up that I am in no way, shape or form justifying or saying "poor Rodgers" in this case. This is his own doing and he deserves whatever punishment he gets.

I am assuming the closest precedence we have to this for reference is Ridley's situation. When Ridley had his suspension, he was heading into the final year of his rookie deal as well (although for him it was his 5th year option. But still similar). In Ridley's case, he did not get paid for that 2022 season and the contract deferred so that his final season was then upon reinstatement (which is now this coming 2023 season). So, my guess would be that once the league rules on if he is suspended and for how long, that contract of his will defer until he is reinstated (when or if that is) and the Colts would hold his rights for that final coming year whenever it is. That being said, his $2.743M remaining year on his contract only has like $36K in dead money if he is cut. So, the Colts could feasibly cut him at any time during this process and just handle that tiny cap acceleration now and be done with it. I imagine this will all come down to what the final details are and how significant the league deems the suspension as being worthy of. I feel pretty confident it will likely be one of those "indefinite suspensions" with a minimum duration. Likely more than that minimum 1-year duration that Ridley and some of the Lions' players got recently if all the details and extent of the wagers are accurate. Really sucks for this kid. He has so much promise and potential and it was his time to shine. He made the most of his opportunity when you consider that he is really truly not the prototypical Ballard type of long, lengthy CB. He just balled out and made plays when he had the chance and was finally getting his true opportunity. Tough break, but hard to really feel bad when he admittedly did stuff that everyone had to know they couldn't do with the league's recent sternness on the issue. Oof.

I had a couple that I have to pay homage to: DJ Khaled- "All I Do is Win" And then I just had to throw it back to my youth: Joe Esposito - You're The Best Around At the end of the day this is the first time in a long time I thought the Colts killed the draft and arguably had the best draft in the entire league. Top-5 at a minimum in my mind. Although I badly wanted to post a random, out of left field type of song with no explanation just to make people scratch their heads. :-D Snow-Informer was gonna be my throw-away head scratcher :-)

As others have posted, this is no surprise. Kiper hates hates hates the Colts. Calvert Hall alum in Bmore. Always hated them for leaving. Also had the tiff with Tobin when Tobin was the GM for the Colts back in the 90s. The crazy thing is that heading into day 3, 3 of Kiper's top 4 remaining players were Ringo, Ade Ade, Freeland and Rush. The Colts walked away with 3 of his top 4 remaining players heading into day 3. And also got Downs at a very big value. So essentially the only picks Kiper is downgrading on is AR over Levis and Brents. Kiper did not love the Brents pick because he had other corners rated higher. The dumb thing is he still had AR ranked 7th overall compared to Levis at 4. That is not nearly enough to downgrade someone. And he had Brents as his 10th rated CB. And the guys he had ahead of him that were available when the Colts picked Brent were all taken within 16 picks of Brents other than Ringo. So the Colts walked away with Kiper's: QB- #4 RB- #19 WR- #8 TE- #10 OT- #7, #17 DT- #5 OLB- #22 CB- #10, #11, #26 S- #14 I look at that haul and basically say that the Colts came away with a top-20 prospect relative to their position in 10 of their 12 picks by Kiper's rankings with only Titus Leo and Jaylon Jones falling outside that range. Genuinely almost all over sites gave the Colts an A+, A or A-. I am usually super harsh on our draft. This is the first year in a long time that i cam out thinking we nailed it. I probably would not give us anything lower than an initial A rating and think we genuinely had a top-5 draft with teams like Pitt, Philly, Az, and maybe one of NYG/TB. Cleveland also had a strong draft for their limited picks. This was a great weekend. Even if Kiper sees it as a bottom-5 type of grade which is absolutely silly.

Another great get for Pitt. They’ve been awesome this draft cycle too.

I’ve seen multiple articles that essentially called Witt the most athletic tackle in the draft and while he’s the most raw w very little experience, the potential is incredible. a fun fun pick to end things

https://theathletic.com/4330488/2023/03/22/nfl-draft-2023-jake-witt/ great article on Witt world of potential

FWIW I remember reading somewhere where some colts members and players thought a change in coaching was all it would take and that we had some of the right players in-house to recapture former glory im Not sure I personally believe that. But I do think sparano jr worked wonders for Andrew Thomas who went from being called a bust to a top-5 OT under him in NY so I have higher hopes than most i still would like to add some interior OL guys post draft like most of us would but we shall see

Jaylon is solidddddd