INDIANAPOLIS — The next bit of business for the Indianapolis Colts is rookie minicamp, which opens next Friday.
But first, there’s the business of taking care of financial business.
General manager Chris Ballard, cap specialist Mike Bluem and others are in the process of signing the team’s nine draft picks.
The three-day, 257-pick draft was replete with uncertainty, but that’s not the case with signing draft picks.
The NFL’s rookie wage scale has eliminated much of the back-and-forth between teams and agents. A player is essentially slotted at his draft position, although there’s still discussion on guarantees and how a signing bonus might be distributed.
Last offseason, seven of the 12 draft picks were under contract prior to rookie minicamp. The last signee: No. 4 overall pick Anthony Richardson.
The much-hyped rookie quarterback participated in rookie minicamp but didn’t finalize his guaranteed four-year, $$33.99 million contract until July 25, just prior to the start of training camp. Things were wrapped up a day earlier with second-round cornerback JuJu Brents and fourth-round offensive tackle Blake Freeland.
The Colts’ rookie pool is $10.78 million, but the rookie class will count $3.627 million against the cap. Only the top 51 players are counted during the offseason. For accounting purposes, the top four draft picks will replace the bottom four players on the roster counting $988,334 or less.
That’s getting too deep in the weeds.
Here are the four-year contracts the draft class can anticipate, according to overthecap.com. Laiatu Latu’s will include a fifth-year option.
*Round 1/No. 15 overall: DE Laiatu Latu - $17.03 million (guaranteed), $9.2 million signing bonus, $3.096 million against the salary cap.
*Round 2/52: WR Adonai Mitchell - $7.386 million, $2.19 million signing bonus, $1.342 million against the cap.
*Round 3/79: OT Matt Goncalves - $5.8 million, $1.066 million signing bonus, $1.061 million against the cap.
*Round 4/117: G/C Tanor Bortolini - $4.799 million, $799,868 signing bonus, $989,967 against the cap.
*Round 5/142: WR Anthony Gould - $4.372 million, $352,668 signing bonus, $883,167 against the cap.
*Round 5/151: LB Jaylon Carlies - $4.356 million, $336,240 signing bonus, $879,060 against the cap.
*Round 5/164: CB Jaylin Simpson - $4.317 million, $297,016 signing bonus, $869,254 against the cap.
*Round 6/201: CB Micah Abraham - $4.193 million, $173,956 signing bonus, $838,489 against the cap.
*Round 7/234: DT Jonah Laulu - $4.124 million, $104,520 signing bonus, $821,130 against the cap.
You can follow Mike Chappell on Twitter at @mchappell51.