Report: Colts’ initial offer to Daniel Jones was in the range of Sam Darnold’s deal
With Colts quarterback Daniel Jones restricted by the transition tag, he cannot obtain provides from different groups till the new league yr begins. Once Wednesday at 4:00 pm 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 pm ET on Wednesday), he can signal an offer sheet with a brand new group. The Colts would have 5 days to match, with no proper to compensation if they do not. (He’d additionally fall out of the compensatory decide system, if he leaves by way of an offer sheet.)
For Jones, any long-term offer will probably be weighed towards the one-year, $37.833 million chicken in the hand.
Albert Breer of SI.com reported earlier this week that the Colts’ “initial offer” (which implies it wasn’t the ultimate 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 applied, “a deal price $50 million per yr could be extra in the ballpark” than what Jones would take.
While some (including whoever does the social-media posts for SI.com) are misinterpreting Breer’s reporting to imply Jones requested for $50 million per yr, the most 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 yr would have turn into an affordable ballpark.
But the Colts did not 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 provides. 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 important accidents throughout his seven-year profession.
The Colts appear to be banking on nobody breaking the financial institution for an offer sheet Indy will not match. Which makes the transition tag the start line for a doable long-term deal that might land in the range of $41 million per yr — and which additionally offers Jones the capacity to gather $37,833 million by 2026 and play beneath the transition tag.
It additionally offers the Colts the capacity to let him just do that, with a choice 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 important harm.
Which brings us again to the query that will probably be resolved in some unspecified time in the future after 4:00 pm ET on Wednesday: Will one other group put collectively an offer sheet that he’ll signal?
