NFL Teams are Creating Cap Space, Will Colts Do It Too?

This time last year, the Indianapolis Colts thought they were close to fixing the issues that caused the conclusion of their previous season. They invested almost solely in their own in-house free agents, electing to run it back with a group they thought would be motivated to get over the hump. Ultimately, they were wrong.

"Instead of really creating competition throughout and throwing new blood into the locker room, new players into the locker room, I said, ‘You know what? We're going to run it back.’ That was a mistake. It was," general manager Chris Ballard avowed at the end of a 2024 season in which the Colts missed the playoffs for a fourth consecutive year.

Since then, Ballard has verbally committed multiple times to change the team's approach over these next several months, acknowledging they need to do a better job of bringing in outside talent and closing deals rather than losing out to other teams.

As of Thursday morning, the Colts had a projected $34.7 million in cap space, according to OverTheCap.com, which ranks 19th out of 32 teams.

Other teams are doing work to create more cap space for themselves. The Dallas Cowboys restructured the contracts of Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb. Veterans like Joey Bosa, Gardner Minshew, Christian Kirk, and Tyler Lockett were released by their teams, and the Kansas City Chiefs traded away their best offensive lineman, Joe Thuney.

For the most part, those were all tough decisions to make. So, will the Colts be making any tough decisions to give themselves more cap space to use when the new league year begins next Wednesday?

The Colts have a few critical players making big money who could potentially accept restructured deals to make more room. DeForest Buckner ($26.6M) and Michael Pittman Jr. ($23M) both signed contract extensions last offseason and represent the two largest cap hits for the Colts in 2025. Quenton Nelson ($22.7M) is next.

The toughest choices the Colts have, however, lie among Braden Smith, Samson Ebukam, and Raekwon Davis. They are all entering the final year of their contract and are making beyond what their current market value likely would be, which often results in a release on other teams. However, the Colts could come to the bargaining table and elect to scrap the players' current deals and offer new ones at a better cost.

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Smith is the Colts' fourth-highest cap hit in 2025 with a whopping $19.75M. When he's on the field, he is one of the best right tackles in football, but he's missed 12 games over the last two years, has only played a full season once, and has been away from the team since November with personal matters.

“We’re supporting Braden. Think the world of him. Been a great player for us. We’ll see going forward,” Ballard said of Smith last week at the NFL Combine. “What I will tell you is: He’s doing really well, and he wants to play football. We’ll work through the rest of it.”

While the Colts don't seem to have shut the door on Smith's return, it's almost unfathomable that he plays for his nearly $20M price tag in 2025. The two sides could agree to a more appropriate deal, or part ways. The Colts would create $16.75M in space with Smith's release.

Ebukam represents the ninth-highest cap hit for the Colts in 2025 at $10.49M. He was a terrific free-agent find for the Colts in the 2023 offseason, notching a career-best and team-high 9.5 sacks. However, he suffered a torn Achilles last year during training camp and missed the 2024 season. He will be 30 years old and coming off of a serious injury in 2025.

The Colts will likely want to hang onto Ebukam, especially if they get priced out of re-signing Dayo Odeyingbo, but how effective can Ebukam be at that age, coming off of an injury that usually takes the average player at least a year to return to themselves (if they ever do)? The Colts would create $7.49M in cap space by releasing Ebukam.

Last for today is Davis, whose $8.99M lays just outside the top 10 most expensive Colts. Indy signed him last offseason to give the defense a true quality backup behind DeForest Buckner and Grover Stewart. However, things didn't quite go to plan. Davis missed all but the final training camp practice due to high blood pressure, and he finished as comfortably the lowest-graded full-time Colts defender, according to Pro Football Focus. His 37.0 grade was an incredible 20 points lower than the next-lowest full-time Colts defender. The Colts can create $6.49M in cap space by releasing Davis.

The Colts can choose to tinker with the contracts of guys like Buckner, Pittman, and Nelson, but by making the contract cuts of Smith, Ebukam, and Davis it creates nearly $31M in cap space, giving them about $65.7M. That figure would currently rank fifth-most in the NFL and make them real players in a game in which they need to compete heavily.

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