The Indianapolis Colts used the non-exclusive franchise tag on wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr. on Tuesday, which had a large impact on the team’s salary-cap space.
Fortunately for the Colts, they entered the offseason working with an abundance of cap space. Applying the franchise tag, which costs $21.8 million, also gives them the chance to work out a long-term deal, which could save them cap space depending on the structure.
After applying the one-year, fully guaranteed tender, the Colts now have roughly $49.2 million in cap space and just over $45 million in effective cap space, per Over The Cap.
Those figures rank seventh and sixth, respectively, among teams in the NFL.
Pittman won’t need to sign his franchise tender until the middle of July so they have time to wrinkle out the details on a long-term contract.
With that order of business on the shelf for now, the Colts now turn their focus to re-signing some of their big-name free agents like defensive tackle Grover Stewart and cornerback Kenny Moore II. Both players should have extremely strong markets.
We’ll see what’s in store for the Colts leading up to the open negotiating period, which arrives Monday. But they should have plenty of cap space to work with on the open market.
