The Colts have taken a strategic step to keep quarterback Daniel Jones in the mix for 2026. On Tuesday, Indianapolis announced it had applied the transition tag to Jones ahead of the 4 p.m. ET tagging deadline.
Here's what that means: with the transition tag in place, the Colts can match any offer Jones receives from another team during free agency. If Jones agrees to terms with another club and the Colts choose not to match, Indianapolis would not receive draft-pick compensation.
Under the one-year transition tender, Jones would earn $37.833 million in 2026 if a long-term agreement isn’t reached and he doesn’t sign elsewhere in free agency.
By contrast, had the Colts used the franchise tag, Jones’s one-year cap hit would have been $43.895 million.
Jones is still recovering from a torn Achilles suffered in early December. Before his injury, he helped the Colts to an 8-5 record in games he started, completing 68.0 percent of his passes for 3,101 yards with 19 touchdowns and eight interceptions.
This move marks just the seventh time since 2013 that a transition tag has been employed, and it’s the Colts’ first use of a transition tag since 1998.
With the tag on Jones, wide receiver Alec Pierce is now set to become an unrestricted free agent next week. However, Pierce could still re-sign with Indianapolis before hitting the open market. ESPN’s Stephen Holder reported that Pierce’s representatives and the Colts had been negotiating, with Pierce expressing interest in continuing to play alongside Jones.
