In one year, the Washington Commanders went from four wins to making the NFC Championship Game. There are many things that Indianapolis Colts and other average or struggling teams can learn from Washington.
However, one thing in particular that GM Chris Ballard can take away from a roster construction standpoint is how Commanders GM Adam Peters has bolstered his young position groups with roster additions. free veterans.
Like the NFL Network Peter Schrager pointed out, in free agency the Commanders added Marcus Mariota, Austin Ekeler, Zach Ertz, Bobby Wagner, Frankie Luvu, Jeremy Chinn, Andrew Wylie and Dante Fowler.
Schrager also notes, importantly, that none of these free agents were considered “hot” names on the market.
These types of regular veteran additions can help raise the level of a position group and increase competition within the roster.
Those are two pieces that this Colts team was missing – something Ballard admitted during his end-of-season press conference.
His decision to return largely with the same team from 2023 to 2024 — even though he didn’t make the playoffs — is something Ballard called a “mistake.” He admitted that the lack of competition on the roster has led to complacency and a lack of year-over-year growth.
To overcome this, more needs to be added to the list through free agency. The best organizations are built through the draft, but when there are gaps, a general manager must be willing to fill out the roster with outside additions — something Ballard has often been unwilling to do.
The Colts enter the offseason with just over $28 million in available cap space, according to Over the Cap, and that ranks in the middle of the pack compared to the rest of the NFL.
As I detailed recently, there are a number of positions the Colts could justify adding this offseason, and that’s part of the challenge because there’s only a limited amount of cap space and draft picks available.
However, as we saw in Commanders, adding players in free agency doesn’t necessarily require signing all of the most expensive players on the market. There’s something to be said for creating more competition with reliable, consistent veteran presences that help improve the play of an entire position group.
This article was originally published on Colts Wire: One thing the Colts can learn from the Commanders’ success
