Quote:
Originally Posted by rm1369
I posted in another thread that it was likely the Colts would be forced to franchise Brissett next year. They were in a bad spot. Brissett is unproven, but also a young player with upside that they obviously like. Even a decent year would have forced the Colts to make a huge investment to keep him. QB money is simply insane. And they’d have to make that investment after 1 year basically. Instead they have given him a 2 year deal basically worth the equivalent of this years salary and the franchise tag next year. Why not just wait? Because of the escalator clause in the franchise tag. It gets significantly more expensive each time you are forced to use it. They now have him locked up for three years (next two plus one franchise year) at a cost they can manage to decide what they have and how to move forward. And they did it in a way that built goodwill with the player and maintained their long term flexibility. To me you are looking at this wrong - this deal likely saved the Colts money long term. The only way it is bad is if Brissett completely fails. Even if he is mediocre it still works out for them IMO. It was a good move by Ballard who was placed in a bad situation.
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It really only bought them a year.
Now a decision has to be made in two years instead of one long term.
I don't have a problem with that they did, but I don't see it saving them any money on the long term. Whether it be next year or the year after, you have to eventually decide is he deserves to be paid like a typical starter in the league, which is way more than $15 million a year, more likely $30 million a year now for a decent one.
If they franchise him in the 3rd year its hard telling how much money that will be when that comes up. That may not be a realistic option. Its an average of the top 5 player salaries at the position over the past 5 years. Its is $25 million a year right now for a QB and is most assuredly going up in the next few years, probably to at least $30 million. Plus he could choose to sit out, create another bad situation for the team at QB if their is a prolonged negotiation. The last thing this team needs is more unknowns at QB due to a salary dispute. So the idea they can just franchise tag him for a year is questionable at best