Colts release Donald Thomas

The Colts cuts are coming shortly, as teams need to get down from 90-players to 75-players by 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon.  Some of them might start today, as one prominent player has already been cut: offensive lineman Donald Thomas.

It was first reported by Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio and the Indianapolis Star's Stephen Holder but has since been confirmed by the Colts.  Thomas was just taken off of the PUP list on Friday, which could indicate that the Colts were just waiting until he was healthy so that they could waive him without an injury settlement.  By cutting him, the Colts save quite a bit of cap room - $3.5 million, to be exact, since he was due a $3.5 million base salary if one the roster to start the regular season.

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Thomas was originally signed as a free agent by the Colts in 2013 and entered that season as their starting right guard, but early in the second regular season game he suffered a torn quad, ending his season.  Then in 2014, he returned for training camp and seemed to be the favorite to be the team's starting left guard early on.  But he suffered another injury in a drill in camp: another torn quad.  Two torn quads, two years in a row.  That's a lot to come back from, no matter who the player is.

That's the reason that we really couldn't count on Thomas whatsoever entering this season - because we just didn't know what to expect from him.  We had no idea if he would be healthy or if he could return to his prior level of play, so this move isn't really a huge surprise, though it's pretty significant.  The Colts simply haven't seen Thomas in over a year, and the fact that he was due such a significant amount of money if on the roster to open the regular season likely tipped the scales in favor of not keeping Thomas around, which makes perfect sense.  Hopefully he comes back healthy and gets a shot with some team, but the reality is that we haven't seen him on the field in over a year.