Financial standing of the Colts salary cap table

Alvaro Fernandez da Ponte

19 Jul 2025 — 2 min read

As we prepare for rookies and veterans to report for the start of the Colts' training camp, I wanted to take a look to the future to gain a better understanding of the Colts' current financial situation, specially by looking at how they stack up compared to the rest of the league. What positions are they spending more than league standard on? What positions are they spending less on? And most importantly, why is this the case and how is it bound to change as we go into the future.

Offense

Firstly, let's look at the spending on the offensive side of the ball. Across the board, the Colts seem to underspend the league in the vast majority of positions, thanks to the substantial amount of key contributors they currently have under rookie deals. Some such examples include:

Josh Downs – 803 yards, 5 TDs
Alec Pierce – 824 yards, 7 TDs
Tyler Warren – 14th overall pick
Anthony Richardson – 4th overall pick
Benhard Raimann – Cornerstone LT

Outside of Quenton Nelson, Michael Pittman Jr. and Jonathan Taylor, the Colts have avoided spending substantial amounts of capital on any of their current offensive players. Braden Smith's contract was renegotiated. Will Fries and Ryan Kelly left in free agency.

However, the Colts will have to spend a significant amount of their surplus reserves to keep some of their young foundational pieces, as players like Rainmann (est. $26.8m APY) and Pierce (est. $8-12M APY) are bound to command a hefty price.

Defense

The defensive side of the ball has yielded a lower return on the draft capital that has been allocated towards it. However, specially this last season, Ballard has offset this lack of top end young defensive production with marquee acquisitions such as Charvarius Ward and Camryn Bynum.

The surplus that exists at the LB position is due to the minimal spending that exists outside of Zaire Franklin. Even looking into the future, beyond resigning Kwity Paye and Nick Cross, there isn't an unfathomable amount of capital that needs to be deployed on the defensive side of the ball.

Overall, considering the Colts currently rank 7th in terms of available cap in 2026 ($69.4M), they are excellently positioned to keep the necessary players, as well as even re-signing high performing players before they reach their contract year (ex: Josh Downs).

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