The Indianapolis Colts need to add competition throughout the roster this offseason. However, when it comes to having the necessary assets to do so, how do they compare to the rest of the NFL in that ability to do so?
Timo Riske of Pro Football Focus recently set out to find out the answer to that question–and not only for the Colts, but for the rest of the NFL.
The Colts, and every NFL team, of course have two avenues when it comes to bolstering their rosters: free agency and the draft.
In order to figure out each team’s available offseason assets, Riske took into account the current cap situation, their ability to restructure certain contracts to help create more cap space this offseason, along with each team’s draft capital–both the quantity and the quality of those picks.
For more on the formula and how those components went into Riske’s calculations, click here.
When it comes to the Colts, they will enter the offseason with just over $28 million in available cap space, according to Over the Cap. This ranks as the 18th most in football.
They do have the ability to create a fair amount of additional cap space through restructures, which there are six contracts in particular they could leverage in that regard. For those details, follow this link.
It terms of the draft, the Colts hold the 14th overall selection and have seven picks in total–one in each of the seven rounds.
So factoring all that in, by Riske’s calculations, the Colts–as they often seem to do–rank right in the middle of the pack at 15th in total offseason assets.
Their draft capital is their biggest asset and their ability to restructure those aforementioned contracts could play a key role in giving them more maneuverability in free agency.
The challenge ahead for Chris Ballard is that there are a lot of positions on this team that could use added competition. Realistically, not all will be addressed–or at least not with high-end players–so picking and choose where those assets are allocated could prove difficult because there are a number of needs to tackle.