Did the Colts put themselves in a corner with the Daniel Jones transition tag?

Yahoo Sports NFL analyst Nate Tice, NFL writer Charles McDonald and fantasy analyst Matt Harmon discuss why the Indianapolis Colts put the transition tag on QB Daniel Jones in the first place. Check out the full conversation on “Football 301” – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.

Video Transcript

I just wanna ask more about, like, this Daniel Jones situation.

like, when, when he, where he gets hit with the transition tag, it’s, it’s thirty-seven point eight million dollars this year for, him on the transition tag, and they’re working on an extension f- with him.

I c- I can’t imagine that that would be, like, a long-term extension, s- due to the injury and also, like, some of the play that was happening before the injury, where the, the offense was starting to fall apart a little bit.

I guess I, I just find my- myself asking, why, why was this tag necessary?

w- like, who, who is signing– like, who was matching this offer sheet in the first place, like, to get Daniel Jones, like, for one year, forty million dollars coming off the Achilles?

What, what, what, what, what was your competition here to, to get this done to the point where you had to, like, lock him in on this big figure?

And like, dude, if I’m Daniel Jones, okay, well, if my salary this year is gonna be thirty-seven, you know, you know, almost thirty-eight million dollars, then why would I, like, start negotiating for something that would be less than, like, two years, eighty million dollars?

Or, or, or- Right in that ballpark just based off of, of, of what you’re what, what is the currently being offered to you today.

and that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s a commitment, man, for, for the Colts, even for two years, because you don’t know what can happen.

I mean, did, if, did, did, did you know, maybe at the start of the season that you would have a chance at signing Kyler Murray?

I don’t know.

No.

But now you’re kinda locked out of that if Daniel Jones is, continues on, on the transition tag.

And maybe Kyler still joins for a vet minimum, and they have a little, quarterback battle because his contract is so cheap you can kinda do both.

But, it, it, it– I just, I’ve just been confused on why this felt necessary, because I feel pretty certain that you probably won’t spend two months averaging more points than the 2007 Patriots and having that level of ruthless efficiency.

maybe you won’t be quite as bad as you were towards the end of the year.

But at, at no point does this really scream like, “Oh, man,” like, “we gotta invest in this,” other than just saying, “Well, F it.

We traded two first-round picks.

What, what now?”

It doesn’t have to be this.

This was just what you did last time.

But you could do something else, and I just find it interesting that they locked themselves in here, especially considering, man, no one’s gonna match this.

And, and even if you- Yeah were thinking about someone could match this, look at what’s out there.

There aren’t really many spots that would make sense for, for, for this to happen.

So it just kinda feels like they’re negotiating against themselves here, against an asset that we all know was on, on the downswing coming into the off-season.

Did the Colts put themselves in a corner with the Daniel Jones transition tag?

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