Stampede Blue
Attempting to read the tea leaves that fell from Chris Ballard’s press conference at the NFL Scouting Combine.
Indianapolis, IN — The NFL Scouting Combine’s media portion kicked off this morning as general managers and head coaches from across the league took the podium for availability.
While these press conferences in question offer potential insight as to how a team will operate in upcoming acquisitional periods such as free agency and the NFL Draft itself, now is the first opportunity since the season concluded for media members to check in on the futures of rostered players and/or pending free agents.
As for the Indianapolis Colts, its pending free agent class pales in comparison to the previous off-season which saw a slew of homegrown players be retained. However, the three biggest question marks surrounded OL Ryan Kelly and Braden Smith, as well as DE Samson Ebukam.
Kelly has been a longtime Colt, spending his entire NFL career thus far in Indianapolis. A multi-time Team Captain and Pro-Bowler, Kelly’s time in Indy appears to have come to an end. Colts general manager Chris Ballard had this to say about their discussion(s) thus far with Kelly:
“We’re gonna meet again next week. I’m visiting with his agent again this week. Right after the season, we visited for a little bit; we didn’t visit about his future.”
With how inconsistent Kelly has been over the last few years, and with the team’s future center in Tanor Bortolini ready to take the reins, it certainly makes sense from the Colts’ standpoint to move on. Ballard didn’t make any proclamations that they’d be doing so, but it felt as if the future has already been written.
One of the biggest talking points during this off-season has been regarding the potential cuts of tackle Braden Smith and defensive end Samson Ebukam. The Colts could theoretically add ~$25M in cap space with only $6M in dead cap if they were to make these moves.
While that seemed to be on the table before today’s media availability, the vibe after Chris Ballard’s press conference seemed as if one of the two players is likely to be back whereas the other in question is unlikely to return.
The longtime Colt has struggled to stay on the field during the latter half of his tenure thus far, as he has only put together a full season in one of the past four years. Smith had a personal matter come up this past season which ultimately held him out of the team’s last five games. This is what general manager Chris Ballard had to say when asked about his situation:
“We’re supporting Braden [Smith]. We think the world of him, he’s been a great player for us. We’ll see going forward. What I will tell you is that he’s doing really well, and he wants to play football. We’ll work through the rest of it.”
Although he provided his unwavering support of Smith, it...
