OK. So now what?
Now, if you're the Indianapolis Colts, you go back to the drawing board on the quarterback deal, and right now the drawing board is a scrawl of doodles and stick figures. You got rid of Carson Wentz, who was The Guy until he wasn't, and you even suckered the Washington Commanders into picking up the $28 mill left on his contract.
So, again: Now what?
Lots of names floating around out there as the Next Guy for the Colts, and none of them are Peyton Manning, or even Andrew Luck. You've got the backup QB in Buffalo (Mitch Trubisky) and a handful of other backups/journeymen, and there isn't a single one who's going to make you forget Carson Wentz.
Who wasn't bad, in his one season with the Colts. And whom the Commanders thought enough of to swallow that $28 mill chunk and pay him an additional, reported $22 mill on top of it.
In Indianapolis, that means Colts GM Chris Ballard snookered Washington, and now has a fat pile of cash-cap dough to play with.
Elsewhere ... well, why does the Blob suspect there's a good chance the Colts could wind up with seller's remorse here?
Look. Wentz was not the guy the daydreamers in Indy thought he could magically become simply because he was reunited with his pal Frank Reich. Nor was he ever gonna be.
However ...
However, he was better than you think he was.
Everything is perception, and much of the perception about Wentz was colored by the way he pooped the bed in the Colts' last two games. And it was also colored by the way a pissed-off Jim Irsay ran his mouth about Wentz as a result.
This obscured a few things.
Like the fact Wentz threw 27 touchdown passes against just seven interceptions in 2021 -- or one pick every 74 attempts, which ain't half bad.
Like the fact he had a not-superb-but-not-horrendous 94 passer rating.
Like the fact he had zero, zilch, nada elite receivers to work with.
If Ballard's as smart as some people think he is, he'll remedy that situation by spending some of the Colts' pile to bring in an elite receiver or two. Or steal a potential one in the draft with the picks they got for Wentz.
But they won't have a QB much better than Wentz to throw to him, because this is a weak QB draft and Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers are no longer walking through that door. As if they ever were going to anyway.
So ...
So, that leaves Trubisky as a possibility, or perhaps Jimmy Garoppolo. Neither, however, is more than first aid. And only the latter would be a clear upgrade from Wentz.
"I'd like to quit Band-Aiding (at quarterback)," Ballard said back in January.
Sure. And I'd like to shoot 3s like Steph Curry, too.
But that ain't happenin', either.
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