I’m not a big believer in the ‘window closing’, but there are a lot of contracts up at the end of this season (depending on the CBA). Of course, that’s intentional. All over the league tons of contracts run out. The idea is to scare the players union into a bad deal at the negotiating table.
That’s not the case with those 19 others, all of whom can become either unrestricted or restricted free agents at the end of the season.
If a new collective bargaining agreement is reached and players once again are unrestricted after four years in the league — it took six years this offseason because of 2010 being a year without a salary cap — 13 Colts, many of them front-line players, would be unrestricted. Realistically, it’s only a dozen because the team undoubtedly will lock up Manning, but that’s still a lot of dicey personnel matters to deal with.
That’s in stark contrast to this offseason, when the Colts had only two unrestricted free agents — linebacker Gary Brackett, who signed a five-year, $33 million contract, and place-kicker Matt Stover, who remains unsigned.
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