With Colts quarterback Daniel Jones restricted by the transition tag, he can’t obtain presents from different groups till the new league 12 months begins. Once Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. ET arrives, what is going to occur?
He’ll make $37.833 million in 2026 if he accepts the transition tag. Before then (and after 4:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday), he can signal an offer sheet with a brand new staff. The Colts would have 5 days to match, with no proper to compensation in the event that they don’t. (He’d additionally fall out of the compensatory choose system, if he leaves by way of an offer sheet.)
For Jones, any long-term offer might be weighed in opposition to the one-year, $37.833 million hen in the hand.
Albert Breer of SI.com reported earlier this week that the Colts’ “initial offer” (which suggests it wasn’t the closing offer) to Jones was “in the range of Sam Darnold’s three-year, $100.5 million deal” with the Seahawks. Per Breer, the Jones camp responded by saying that, if the franchise tag is utilized, “a deal worth $50 million per year would be more in the ballpark” of what Jones would take.
While some (together with whoever does the social-media posts for SI.com) are misinterpreting Breer’s reporting to imply Jones requested for $50 million per 12 months, the extra correct characterization is that, if the Colts had utilized the $43.895 million franchise tag, the normal method to turning that right into a long-term deal ($43.895 million in 2026, with a 20-percent bump for 2027) would have resulted in a two-year payout of $96.569 million.
So, sure, if the Colts would have used the franchise tag, $50 million per 12 months would have grow to be an affordable ballpark.
But the Colts didn’t use the franchise tag. They went with the decrease stage. That creates the foundation for a two-year payout of $83.237 million ($37.833 million for 2026 with a 20-percent bump for 2027). That works out to a mean of $41.62 million.
The transition tag additionally opens the door to different presents. Complicating that course of is each the availability of different veteran quarterbacks and Jones’s present well being. He’s recovering from a torn Achilles tendon suffered in December 2025, and he has had a number of different vital accidents throughout his seven-year profession.
The Colts appear to be banking on nobody breaking the financial institution for an offer sheet Indy gained’t match. Which makes the transition tag the start line for a attainable long-term deal that will land in the range of $41 million per 12 months — and which additionally offers Jones the potential to acquire $37.833 million for 2026 and play below the transition tag.
It additionally offers the Colts the potential to let him just do that, with a call for 2027 and past made based mostly on how 2026 goes, each as to manufacturing and as to whether or not he avoids one other vital damage.
Which brings us again to the query that might be resolved sooner or later after 4:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday: Will one other staff put collectively an offer sheet that he’ll signal?
