There are no holdouts to begin Colts training camp. No one will be on the sidelines in a hoodie. The Colts actually return more than a 53 man roster of players. That left the greatest contract dispute of Ryan Kelly.

To be fair, it is not a dispute, per se, as Kelly is in the final year of his 4-year $50 million deal from 2020. The only issue is that he has not been offered an extension even though, according to him, “We made it known that we wanted to stay and that we wanted to have an extension and they didn’t see it as part of their priority.”

Now that sounds bad, but remember that is from the player’s perspective. Chris Ballard said that he was not going to talk about contracts, but did provide perspective that “we’re really loyal to players who are good players.” This is particularly displayed in last year’s offseason having re-signed Michael Pittman Jr., Kenny Moore, Grover Stewart, Tyquan Lewis and Julian Blackmon, to name a few. They also extended Deforrest Buckner and Zaire Franklin, which was more of a readjustment to MIKE linebacker compensation.

There is less of a history for early extensions under Ballard. JT is probably the most infamous one, but there was also Quenton Nelson. Ballard usually risks paying a player more if they play well rather than pay them early. From a managerial standpoint, this is a great way to get the best play from your players in a contract year.

Kelly is the second oldest player on the Colts roster now (only to Joe Flacco), at 30 years old. There are options behind Kelly in Wesley French, Danny Pinter and newly drafted Tanor Bortolini. French played well in a few games last year when Kelly was out with a concussion. If Will Fries is brought back, we do love the idea of Anthony Richardson looking at French Fries in front of him.

So just like many stories or plays that happen in training camp, this is no reason to panic. I think Kelly’s assessment that “The Colts have made it clear that they don’t want to do an early extension,” is simply that. Ballard is probably waiting to see how Kelly performs and his health while they continue to evaluate and develop the depth on the roster.