The optimism surrounding Indianapolis this time last year melted away into a woeful four-win season, rendering many of the veterans added in 2022 inessential for the now-rebuilding Colts.
Principal among those was cornerback Stephon Gilmore, who the club traded to the Cowboys for a 2023 fifth-round pick a day before the official start of free agency in March.
"I think it was good for both of us," general manager Chris Ballard said of the trade during Friday's pre-draft news conference. "He's just at a point in his career that, he's at the end of his career. I thought he was a decent fit for the defense. But a chance to get a pick for him in the last year of his deal. Shed a little bit of the contract money off. I thought was good for both of us, be able to send him to Dallas, which is a good spot and a good fit defensively for him. That kind of went into it."
With the franchise in flux, it's essential to stockpile picks and move money off the books as shrewdly as possible -- even if framing the Gilmore trade by reducing his previous fit to "decent" is selling the corner's contributions short.
Entering his age-33 season, Gilmore doesn't possess the same step as his 2019 Defensive Player of the Year campaign, but he's still a five-time Pro Bowler and two-time All-Pro that operated on a tank with plenty of gas in his lone season as a Colt.
Pro Football Focus ranked him as the ninth-best cornerback in 2022 with an 81.1 coverage grade, and his versatility was on display while collecting two interceptions, leading all Colts corners with 66 tackles and being the only member of the defense to have double-digit passes defensed (11).
Still, things faltered for Indy on that side of the ball as the unit ranked 28th in points allowed, its worst showing since 2017. And the delayed window for contention means netting a draft pick by moving Gilmore provides more upside than the veteran playing out his second year when chasing a Super Bowl is concerned.
So now Gilmore finds himself on a championship-caliber team, his fourth squad in four years, manning the boundary opposite Cowboys CB Trevon Diggs in what figures to be a ballhawker's paradise.
The Colts, meanwhile, hold the No. 4 overall pick, which will presumably be used to either select or trade up for a franchise quarterback, as well as eight subsequent selections to flesh out the roster. Knowing the importance of the position and the fact that an All-Pro hole now exists there, Ballard admitted some of that capital could be spent retooling at CB.
"I think it's always a position that, you know you want to have as many cover guys as you can," he said. "But yeah, that's a position we got an eye on. Both -- and we think there's still some free agents out there, too, that could help us if need be."
