Indianapolis has locked up receiver Alec Pierce with a long-term deal.
Will Daniel Jones be next?
Though the Colts gave themselves the right to match any offer Jones receives on the open market with the transition tag, multiple reporters on the team’s beat noted on Tuesday afternoon that Indianapolis is still working toward striking a long-term deal with the quarterback.
Jones, who turns 29 in May, is currently set to make $37.833 million if he plays on the transition tag in 2026, which would be a one-year contract. Jones is also free to explore the open market for any deal from a quarterback-needy team. But the Colts have the right of first refusal to match it.
Jones is still recovering from a torn Achilles suffered in early December.
Prior to his injury, Jones completed 68 percent of his passes for 3,101 yards with 19 touchdowns and eight interceptions in 13 games.
Jones has never started every game in a season — though he was healthy for all of the Giants’ 2022, the club rested him for Week 18 with a postseason berth already locked up. But aside from that year, Jones has started 12, 14, 11, six, 10, and 13 games each season of his career.
The Texans are adding a veteran offensive tackle.
Houston has agreed to a two-year deal with Braden Smith, according to multiple reports.
The initial numbers indicate Smith’s deal is worth $20 million.
Smith, 29, will stay in the AFC South after playing the first eight years of his career for the Colts.
Smith has dealt with multiple injury issues over the last few years. He has not played a full slate of games since 2019, when he started all 16. He played 16 games in 2022 as well. But in the last three seasons, he’s started 10, 12, and 13 games for Indianapolis.
The Texans recently agreed to trade Tytus Howard to the Browns. Smith could be a replacement for Howard at right tackle.
With Colts quarterback Daniel Jones restricted by the transition tag, he can’t receive offers from other teams until the new league year begins. Once Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. ET arrives, what will happen?
He’ll make $37.833 million in 2026 if he accepts the transition tag. Before then (and after 4:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday), he can sign an offer sheet with a new team. The Colts would have five days to match, with no right to compensation if they don’t. (He’d also fall out of the compensatory pick system, if he leaves via an offer sheet.)
For Jones, any long-term offer will be weighed against the one-year, $37.833 million bird in the hand.
Albert Breer of SI.com reported earlier this week that the Colts’ “initial offer” (which means it wasn’t the final offer) to Jones was “in the range of Sam Darnold’s three-year, $100.5 million deal” with the Seahawks. Per Breer, the Jones camp responded by saying that, if the franchise tag is applied, “a deal worth $50 million per year would be more in the ballpark” of what Jones would take.
While some (including whoever does the social-media posts for SI.com) are misinterpreting Breer’s reporting to mean Jones asked for $50 million per year, the more accurate characterization is that, if the Colts had applied the $43.895 million franchise tag, the standard approach to turning that into a long-term deal ($43.895 million in 2026, with a 20-percent bump for 2027) would have resulted in a two-year payout of $96.569 million.
So, yes, if the Colts would have used the franchise tag, $50 million per year would have become a reasonable ballpark.
But the Colts didn’t use the franchise tag. They went with the lower level. That creates the basis for a two-year payout of $83.237 million ($37.833 million for 2026 with a 20-percent bump for 2027). That works out to an average of $41.62 million.
The transition tag also opens the door to other offers. Complicating that process is both the availability of other veteran quarterbacks and Jones’s current health. He’s recovering from a torn Achilles tendon suffered in December 2025, and he has had multiple other significant injuries during his seven-year career.
The Colts seem to be banking on no one breaking the bank for an offer sheet Indy won’t match. Which makes the transition tag the starting point for a possible long-term deal that would land in the range of $41 million per year — and which also gives Jones the ability to collect $37.833 million for 2026 and play under the transition tag.
It also gives the Colts the ability to let him do just that, with a decision for 2027 and beyond made based on how 2026 goes, both as to production and as to whether he avoids another significant injury.
Which brings us back to the question that will be resolved at some point after 4:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday: Will another team put together an offer sheet that he’ll sign?
When word broke on Monday that the Colts and Steelers agreed on a trade that will send wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr. to Pittsburgh, there were not any details of the draft pick swap that would be part of the deal.
Tuesday brought more about which picks are involved in the trade. Albert Breer of SI.com reports that the Steelers will be sending a sixth-round pick to Indianapolis for Pittman and a seventh-round selection. The trade cannot become official until the new league year is underway on Wednesday.
Pittman has also agreed to a new three-year deal with the Steelers worth $59 million.
The Colts also agreed to a new deal with wideout Alec Pierce on Monday and will move forward with him, Josh Downs, Ashton Dulin, and Anthony Gould at wide receiver.
The Raiders have agreed to terms with defensive end Kwity Paye on a three-year, $48 million deal, with $32 million guaranteed, according to multiple reports.
Paye, 27, was 55th on PFT’s top-100 free agents list.
The Colts made Paye a first-round pick in 2021, and he spent his first five seasons with the team. He played 75 of a possible 85 games in his time in Indianapolis, starting 74 of the games he played.
In his career, Paye has 209 tackles, 30.5 sacks, 50 quarterback hits, four forced fumbles and three pass breakups.
The Raiders left a huge hole in their defense when they traded Pro Bowl edge rusher Maxx Crosby to the Ravens last week.
