While the Indianapolis Colts are excited about the future that includes Anthony Richardson, they made sure to bring in a proper mentor in the form of Gardner Minshew.
The Denim Shorts Don signed with the Colts during free agency on a one-year deal that included incentives. It was a pairing in free agency that simply made too much sense considering the history he has with new head coach Shane Steichen.
While Minshew’s contract is worth $3.5 million guaranteed in base salary, he also has $2 million worth of incentives. According to Ari Meirov of The 33rd Team, we now know what those incentives are.
Here’s how those incentives break down:
| Incentive | Bonus Payout |
| 30% of offensive snaps | $500,000 |
| 40% of offensive snaps | $1 million ($500,000 + original $500,000) |
| 50% of offensive snaps | $1.5 million ($500,000 + original $1 million) |
| 60% of offensive snaps | $2 million ($500,000 + original $1.5 million) |
It seems like a pretty straightforward set of incentives solely based on playing time. While the Colts want Richardson to be the starter as soon as possible, it’s also nice to have a bridge option like Minshew to lean on.
Doing some arbitrary math, the Philadelphia Eagles ran 1,179 offensive plays in 2022 while the Colts ran 1,151 offensive plays. Based on those extremely arbitrary numbers, we’ll run with a generic 1,150 offensive plays as a 2023 projection.
And based on that amount of plays, the Colts would be projected to run 67.6 plays per game. With 30% of the total snaps being 345 plays, the math comes out to be roughly five games started for Minshew if he were to play every snap.
Again, these are essentially arbitrary numbers because it will be incredibly difficult to predict the number of plays the Colts will wind up with at the end of 2023. Considering the unknown factors between the pace of play and how efficient the offense will be, it’s difficult to know for sure.
But we’re just trying to give a basic outline of what it could look like.
With that said, it might be tough for Minshew to reach that first incentive tier unless Richardson either gets injured or is further behind in his development than we initially believe. We should have a better idea of the latter when we see him during training camp and the preseason.
The Colts want to start him sooner rather than later because he needs the live reps even if it means dealing with growing pains in the process.
Regardless, we now have something to track during the season in the case of Minshew’s incentives.
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