September 18th, 2013 
Jamie Ellis 
Posted in 
UPDATE (6:43PM Eastern): The Colts have traded their 2014 1st round draft pick to the Cleveland Browns for RB Trent Richardson, the #3 overall pick in the 2013 draft. This is big – very big. This is big for both now and the future. I’ll get into the details shortly…..stay tuned.
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Some very bad injury news…..but……is there hope? Is Ryan Grigson ready to make a monster trade to save the season? I know, this is stuff out of a comic book or movie. However, that is exactly what Jim Irsay is hinting. His most recent Tweet:
This day of MONSTER TRADE,The Tidal Wave Of Deal making…Shocks the system of "..Didn't see THIS ONE COMING!!!!!!" Grig's Rollin' Dice!
— Jim Irsay (@JimIrsay) September 18, 2013
What could this mean? Are we trading for a big name receiver? Maybe it’s a big name offensive lineman? Who knows if it’s anything! You have to say this about our owner….he certainly keeps us on our feet.
NFL trades are difficult because of the money involved and the fact that there is a salary cap which requires teams to spend above a minimum amount and below a maximum amount. Any trade has to fall within each team’s salary cap parameters. I keep close tabs on the Colts cap and they have about $3M – $3.5M more space available than they did last year. Any trade would require the giving team to eat future cap space of the player being traded. For example, if the Colts traded for a wide receiver who has 3 years remaining on his contract with signing bonus cap hist of $1M per season over each of the next 3 years, the Colts would only have to pay his base salary but they would not be on the hook for any signing bonus (monetarily or via pro-rated cap space). Of course, if the Colts traded away one of their players, they would have to eat any signing bonus costs and they would be on the hook for the cap space associated with that signing bonus.
Irsay may just be trying to get spirits up after a very tough week worth of news. We do not have an easy schedule ahead of us and failure to make a move could mean a losing season. I have to ask…..would that be a bad thing? We would get good draft positioning and have a bunch of players returning from injuyr. It’s week 2 and still way too early to speculate. I’m just saying…..
Stay tuned!
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This is a huge trade. Apparently Mr. Irsay wasn’t kidding. Sorry Donald Brown, but the Colts just showed you the door. Now please go out and get 1 or more linemen to block for our new dynamic duo of Bradshaw and Richardson.