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Andrew Luck To Victor Cruz?

Could Victor Cruz be the mystery wide receiver Colts owner Jim Irsay is tweeting about?

By Stewart Blake
Al Bello

We're heading into the wee hours of Sunday morning, but if you're still hanging on, you might want to hang on a little longer. The Colts are apparently banging out a deal in the war room that could have Colts fans drooling.

Or salsa-ing.

Over the last few hours, Jim Irsay has been dropping some juicy tweets about the Colts' plans.

The fact that these negotations have endured over a five day period, according to Irsay, tells me that the Colts are looking to make a splash move. However, Irsay's ability to, let's just say, exaggerate the impact of his team's deals has been fairly obvious over the last few days.

We were supposed to be "elated" by the Ricky Jean-Francois signing. Before Gosder Cherilus, Greg Toler and Erik Walden agreed to terms, Irsay called them "big announcements" with a whole lot of exclamation points.

I'm not going to complain, though. What other owners are this expressive and in touch with their fans?

Shortly after Irsay's initial tweets of "phone lines burning up" and five day negotiations, speculation about Victor Cruz in a Colts uniform started blowing up the Interwebz.

Irsay then dropped this tweet to verify that the target, Cruz or not, was indeed a wide receiver.

Of course, this lead to a bit of a guessing game on Twitter with just about everyone throwing their guess into the ring. Doug Baldwin, formerly of Stanford, was picked out of the guess hat, along with Davone Bess. Baldwin makes sense because of his connection with Luck and new Colts offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton, but he's hardly a "wopper."

And if the Colts have been working to secure a deal to bring Doug Baldwin to Indianapolis for five days, I'd be, uhm, a little depressed. The same can be said for Bess.

The biggest question mark surrounding a deal for Cruz is the Colts' ability, or inability, to afford the receiver. Cruz is obviously looking to cash in, and with the Colts free agency spending spree, there may be some concerns about the remaining cap space to secure Eli Manning's favorite target.

That said, Irsay did mention the Colts being "past the cap cash wise," so obviously they're trying to move pieces around to find some room to make the deal happen. Finding cap space (Colts should have roughly $10 million left) for a game-changer like Cruz certainly makes more sense than spending cash on Baldwin or Bess.

Cruz is also absolutely worth the Colts' No. 24 pick, but it's possible the financials ($8-10 million a year) could be enough to kill the deal.

That, or maybe Irsay's tweet fest. As of now, Irsay's last tweet—a Big Lebowski reference, of course—came over an hour ago.

Stay tuned, folks. We could be doing the salsa before the night is over, and it looks like Pat McAfee would be up for joining us.


UPDATE (6:35 AM)

If the Colts are/were preparing a deal to land Cruz, ESPN's Adam Schefter hasn't caught wind of it.

It's worth noting that the Colts supposed plan has gone undetected to league insiders for five days. Maybe Ryan Grigson and crew are just that stealth, or maybe the player is that low profile.

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