After placing the transition tag on Daniel Jones, what does the Indianapolis Colts’ current salary cap situation look like?
Well, they’re worse off than they were at the start of the week.
Early in the week, the Colts had $33.21 million in salary cap space, which was the 12th-most in the NFL. That, however, has evaporated.
The transition tag amount for a quarterback is $37.83 million. Since the tag is a one-year, fully guaranteed deal, that entire amount counts towards this year’s salary cap. So now, the Colts are roughly $4.7 million over the 2026 salary cap, according to Over the Cap.
There are now just 11 teams that have less salary cap space than the Colts.
There are, of course, paths to creating more space. Agreeing to a long-term deal with Jones would free up quite a bit of room, which is perhaps the plan for GM Chris Ballard.
There are also other ways to manipulate the salary cap, whether that be through contract restructures, contract extensions in some instances, and veteran cuts.
However, any of those aforementioned salary cap moves have to be made prior to free agency if Ballard is going to have any sort of spending power this offseason.
Overall, it may all work out with the Colts again being in a good salary cap position, while also retaining Jones and Alec Pierce, but Ballard has taken a bit of a risky approach to get to that point.
This article originally appeared on Colts Wire: Colts salary cap update after using transition tag on Daniel Jones
Reporting by Paul Bretl, Colts Wire / Colts Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
