Colts continuing to watch waiver wire, but roster mostly set until training camp

The Indianapolis Colts didn’t make a ton of moves in free agency this year, adding one starter (Patrick Robinson) and a couple of depth guys (Scott Tolzien, Robert Turbin, and Jordan Todman). They turned most of their attention to the draft, but they couldn’t fill every hole there.

We’ve seen the Colts add some late free agent signings before, such as safety Mike Adams. He was a post-June 1 signing by the Colts in 2014, added on June 12 after most of the other offseason moves had already been made. He wound up starting at safety that year and has been in that role since - and making the Pro Bowl in each of his two seasons in Indianapolis so far.

So with holes and question marks remaining at some positions on the Colts roster, is it possible we could see the team add some more players in free agency before training camp starts? General manager Ryan Grigson said last week that while they’ll continue to monitor the waiver wire, they feel pretty good about their roster right now.

“I think Coach and I are always open [to signing a player],” Grigson said, “but again we’re in a different kind of climate right now fiscally and how we’re doing things with this roster and even from our owner’s viewpoint of it. We’re going to look and see if anyone comes on the wire, someone maybe that coach and I feel can help us. But they also have to meet certain parameters like age and money and things like that. Again, I said it yesterday, when you get a player in here after – you know we found Mike, we got Mike Adams, he was still able to participate in mandatory minicamp. That’s still enough to get him somewhat indoctrinated into what we do and things like that and then send him on his way for the summer. But if you do it during the summer, that guy has got to be ramped up pretty quick and it’s going to have to be when we get to Anderson. There’s going to be a learning curve there. It’s got to be the right person, the right guy, but we’ll look at everyone.”

In other words, it’s not likely that the Colts will be making many moves over the next several weeks before they arrive at Anderson University for training camp. With mini-camp over, anybody signed won't be able to work with the team until camp, meaning he will be behind in learning the system and things like that. That doesn’t mean they won't sign or claim a guy they feel could be a nice fit, but it does mean that they probably won't be actively seeking out free agents to sign. It also sounds like they feel pretty good about where their roster is at compared to some of the free agents who have been out there a while (like Dwight Freeney, for example), meaning any moves might be for players waived at some point in the coming weeks. Again, Grigson feels good about where the team’s roster is at.

“Yeah, I really do, and I think we’re all on the same page about that,” he said. “We really feel good about, Coach and I, discussed the last man of the 90 today and those guys are important because we’ve been able to get seventh round picks for some of those guys. So I think now the darlings that are out here, you know I keep trying to temper my enthusiasm because like we say, when the pads come on a lot of times it does this, things will flop and the guys that haven’t been showing up so to speak in the shorts, they show up when they are putting their face on people.”

We’ll find out a lot more when the team gets to camp, but for now it sounds like the Colts like their 90-man roster and therefore we shouldn't expect too many moves to take place over these next few weeks.