Colts owner Jim Irsay: Cost of going after Lamar Jackson might be too high

PHOENIX — The Colts might not be ruling out a run at Baltimore superstar Lamar Jackson; Indianapolis general manager Chris Ballard made it clear Monday that the franchise would put in work on the weighty decision of trying to land the former MVP.

But hours after Ballard spoke, Colts owner Jim Irsay broke down the potential obstacles of Indianapolis signing Jackson, a player who will cost plenty, both in dollars and draft pick compensation.

“You’re always looking for great, dynamic players,” Irsay said. “The salary cap, and what you’re giving up draft pick-wise, is so important in franchise building.”

By the time Irsay spoke on Monday night in Arizona, Jackson’s availability had become the dominant topic of this week’s NFL owners’ meetings. The Ravens quarterback released a statement Monday morning, at the same time Baltimore head coach John Harbaugh was scheduled to meet the media, outlining that Jackson requested a trade March 2 because the Ravens, in his view, had “not been interested in meeting my value.”

Ballard’s acknowledgement that the Colts would at least kick the tires made news hours later, in large part because a handful of teams have already publicly ruled out the possibility.

“Any time, at that position, if you’ve got a chance to acquire a guy, you’ve got to do the work on it to see if it’s doable,” Ballard said. “Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s not.”

The Ravens quarterback reportedly wants a market-breaking deal that includes heavy guarantees, if not a full guarantee — Irsay said later in his interview that he does not believe fully guaranteed contracts should be part of the NFL — and any team that signs Jackson will have to give up two first-round picks because Baltimore placed the non-exclusive franchise tag on their star quarterback.

Organizationally, the cost to get Jackson might be too great.

Especially considering the opportunity the Colts have to fulfill Irsay’s deepest desire, to draft and develop a young quarterback of the future.

“Paying a contract like that is not a problem,” Irsay said. “That’s not the issue. The issue is what’s the right thing to do for the franchise, in terms of what helps us win in the long run?”

Irsay has made it clear that he believes the draft is the best place to help the Colts win in the long run.

After a string of veteran quarterbacks yielded increasingly poor results, Indianapolis is done signing placeholders like Philip Rivers and Matt Ryan, legends in the final years of their illustrious careers.

“We’re looking for the future guy, and we want the guy that can be there for the next 10 years,” Irsay said. “For me, at least, personally, it’s a relief, because, as I told you guys, after Philip’s year, I wanted to go young. ‘Let’s go young. Let’s grow our own. It’s time.’”

The Colts are in the best position they’ve been in years to fulfill Irsay’s wish.

Indianapolis holds the No. 4 pick in April’s draft, and even though Carolina traded up to the No. 1 pick, a move that likely takes two quarterbacks off the board before the Colts even have a chance to make a move, Ballard made it clear Monday that the franchise believes the 2023 draft class is still potentially deep enough to find a quarterback of the future.

A route that Irsay noted is the common denominator in some of the NFL’s best teams.

“If you look at Kansas City, Buffalo, all the teams having success, it’s all drafted quarterbacks, and they picked most of them high,” Irsay said.

A few teams have gone the veteran route and taken it all the way to the mountaintop. Tampa Bay won a Super Bowl with Tom Brady. The Los Angeles Rams traded for Matthew Stafford and came away with a Lombardi.

But Irsay’s preferred method of team-building isn’t a go-for-broke, clean-up-the-mess later approach. Irsay wants sustained success, and he referenced an article he’d read recently about the Rams breaking up their roster this offseason, acknowledging that they were paying the price for the years of aggressive moves that led to a Super Bowl win.

A great quarterback on a rookie deal, Irsay noted, can lead to sustained success, because a team can use the cap savings in the first five years to build the rest of the roster while the young passer develops into a star.

“When you have a young quarterback, a rookie quarterback, it gives you the opportunity to build the franchise for the first three or four years,” Irsay said. “That’s so essential. The money is going to be spent. The question is how do you spend it, and are you going to be able to sustain greatness? … It’s great to get there, but also to sustain it in 2025 and 2027, and not have a situation where you’re in cap prison.”

A big move for Jackson might not put the Colts in cap prison. But it would certainly limit the team’s ability to fix the rest of the holes on a roster that went 4-12-1 last season, and Irsay is looking for sustained success.

The kind of success a team gets by picking the right rookie at the NFL’s most important position.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts Jim Irsay: Cost of getting Lamar Jackson might be too high