THE DAILY DIGEST | Indy Football Report Editor John Oehser takes a look at what they're saying about and what's going on around the AFC Champion Indianapolis Colts . . .
An NFL offseason with a new feel could feel strikingly similar to the Indianapolis Colts.
The NFL's free-agency period is scheduled to begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday, and with the league likely facing its first offseason sans salary cap since 1993, the feeling at the NFL Scouting Combine this past week was teams might approach the period with caution and restraint.
Restraint . . .
Caution . . .
In other words, the way the Colts approach free agency every year.
That's why the early hours of February and the days immediately following likely will feel very familiar to those who follow the Colts, because whether other teams indeed are prudent and calm on those days, the Colts almost certainly will be.
There will be the requisite, necessary news, which began this week when ESPN's Adam Shefter reported that the team had offered two-time Pro Bowl safety Antoine Bethea a first-round tender offer that almost certainly will keep him with the team another year.
If a team signs Bethea to an offer sheet, the Colts will have seven days to match that offer. If they do not, they will receive the other team's first-round selection.
Similar offers to S Melvin Bullitt and OT Charlie Johnson could follow. Not that either necessarily will bring first-round tenders, but each likely will be extended offers big enough to keep them from signing elsewhere.
That remains to be seen, and that's what Colts President Bill Polian said in an interview with the NFL Network on Sunday:
“I think you have to look at it both specifically and from a broader view. On the one hand, we have a budget, as we always have, and we have to meet that budget and we have to meet that every year – cap or no cap. Everybody, I think, has an internal cap of their own. On the larger scale, the question is, 'What's going to happen? This is uncharted waters. We've never been here before. Are we going to get offers on restricted free agents? Are people going to feel that, 'No, maybe there's better value somewhere else. Maybe there's better value in the draft.' I don't know. It's a very deep draft. These are situations we've never been in before. We're going to sit back and wait and see which way the wind is blowing.”
In that vein, this will be an interesting free-agency period to watch. In past offeasons, players offered tenders seldom moved, with most teams figuring giving up draft selections and the cost of the contract too a high a cost. With no salary cap, will that change?
The other pressing question facing the Colts, of course, is that of MLB Gary Brackett.
He and K Matt Stover were the team's lone unrestricted free agents, and with K Adam Vinatieri expected to return to next season, Stover likely won't be a factor, making Brackett what Polian earlier in the offseason said was the team's top priority.
Polian said this past weekend a deal wasn't imminent, and Brackett told a reporter from the Boston Herald that after March 5, “I'll consider all possibilities,” including New England. But Colts Owner and Chief Executive Officer Jim Irsay said the team is prepared to offer Brackett a contract “competitive with some of the top-notch guys at his position.”
That would make it a bit surprising if there's not some sort of news regarding Brackett soon. As in, Thursday soon.
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