In one year, the Washington Commanders went from winning four games to being in the NFC Championship Game. There’s a lot that the Indianapolis Colts and other middling or struggling teams can learn from Washington.
However, one thing in particular that GM Chris Ballard can take from a roster construction standpoint is how Commanders’ GM Adam Peters bolstered his young position groups with veteran free agent additions.
As the NFL Network’s Peter Schrager pointed out, in free agency the Commanders added Marcus Mariota, Austin Ekeler, Zach Ertz, Bobby Wagner, Frankie Luvu, Jeremy Chinn, Andrew Wylie, and Dante Fowler.
Schrager also notes, and this is important, none of those free agent signees were considered “hot” names on the market.
These type of steady veteran additions can help elevate the floor of a position group and bolster the competition throughout the roster.
Those are two elements that has been lacking on this Colts team–something Ballard admitted during his season-ending press conference.
His decision to run-back largely the same roster from 2023 to 2024–despite not making the playoffs–is something that Ballard called a “mistake.” He admitted that the lack of competition on the roster led to complacency and a lack of growth from one year to the next.
To overcome that, there needs to a greater need to add to the roster through free agency. The best organizations build through the draft, but when there are holes, a general manager has to be willing to supplement the roster with outside additions–which Ballard often hasn’t been willing to do.
The Colts enter the offseason with just over $28 million in available cap space, according to Over the Cap, and that ranks in the middle of the pack compared to the rest of the NFL.
As I detailed recently, there are quite a few positions that the Colts could justify adding to this offseason, and that is part of the challenge with there being only so much cap space and draft picks available.
However, as we saw from the Commanders, adding to the roster in free agency doesn’t necessarily require bringing in every high-priced player on the market. There is something to be said for creating more competition with reliable and steady veteran presences who help lift the play of an entire position group.