The Indianapolis Colts are looking to move in a new direction to begin the 2023 season, which means the offseason was spent rebuilding a strong portion of the roster.
Currently among the league leaders in salary-cap space, the Colts rank 26th in offensive spending, 17th in defensive spending and 10th in special teams spending, according to Spotrac.
Despite having some players like Quenton Nelson and Shaquille Leonard at the top of the market at their respective positions, the Colts always seem to have some of the most salary-cap space during the offseason.
Paying for talent is a part of the business, though, and with training camp right around the corner, we wanted to look at how the Colts stack up in their positional spending relative to the rest of the league.
In doing so, we’ll be using the figures from Spotrac to see where the Colts stack up:
Quarterback
These figures are projected as Anthony Richardson has yet to sign his rookie contract. To do this, we combined the lowest base salary ($750,000) with Richardson’s projected prorated signing bonus ($5.43 million per year) to calculate his salary-cap hit.
2023 Cap Hit: $10,653,409 (projected)
League Rank: 22nd (projected)
Biggest Cap Hit: Anthony Richardson ($6.18 million — projected)
Running Back
2023 Cap Hit: $8,977,976
League Rank: 12th
Biggest Cap Hit: Jonathan Taylor ($5.12 million)
Wide Receiver
2023 Cap Hit: $18,250,872
League Rank: 28th
Biggest Cap Hit: Michael Pittman Jr. ($3.95 million)
Tight End
2023 Cap Hit: $11,214,803
League Rank: 18th
Biggest Cap Hit: Mo Alie-Cox ($5.31 million)
Offensive Line
2023 Cap Hit: $53,415,517
League Rank: 7th
Biggest Cap Hit: Braden Smith ($19 million)
Defensive Line
2023 Cap Hit: $51,767,172
League Rank: 6th
Biggest Cap Hit: DeForest Buckner ($17.25 million)
Linebacker
2023 Cap Hit: $30,773,333
League Rank: 12th
Biggest Cap Hit: Shaquille Leonard ($19.79 million)
Cornerback
2023 Cap Hit: $14,381,326
League Rank: 25th
Biggest Cap Hit: Kenny Moore II ($8.17 million)
Safety
2023 Cap Hit: $9,081,402
League Rank: 25th
Biggest Cap Hit: Julian Blackmon ($2.97 million)
Special Teams
2023 Cap Hit: $7,930,000
League Rank: 10th
Biggest Cap Hit: Matt Gay ($3.08 million)
