The Colts didn't lose the Quenton Nelson trade Tuesday, they lost it before the season

The Colts got a third-round pick and a fifth for Quenton Nelson on Tuesday, and I've already heard people call it a robbery. It isn't, not on Tuesday. For a 30-year-old guard on an expiring deal, on a 2-5 team, a third is about what the market pays. The robbery happened before the season, when Indianapolis let an eight-time Pro Bowler walk into the last year of his contract without an extension.

Think about who they just traded. Nelson has made the Pro Bowl in every one of his eight seasons since the Colts took him sixth overall in 2018, and he was a first-team All-Pro his first three years. Elias says only three other offensive players since the merger started a career with eight straight Pro Bowls: Franco Harris, Barry Sanders and Joe Thomas. That's two Hall of Fame running backs and a Hall of Fame left tackle. ESPN reported that Nelson and the Colts didn't reach an extension before the season. Once that happened, a day like Tuesday was always on the calendar.

I spent my career on the line, and I know how this league prices us. Everybody agrees guards matter until somebody has to pay one. You only show up on the replay when you get beat, so it's easy for a front office to tell itself it'll sort out the contract later. Later is how you end up taking a third for a guy whose name sits next to Barry Sanders in the record book.

Now the fair part, and there's a lot of it. Mike Garafolo pointed out that if Nelson had walked in March, the compensatory pick wouldn't have shown up until 2028. A 2027 third is better than that. The Colts have lost three straight, they fired general manager Chris Ballard last week, and ESPN says they're widely expected to reboot the roster this offseason. Green Bay, Chicago and Philadelphia all showed some interest, according to ESPN, so I can't tell you somebody was sitting on a first-round offer. Standing where the Colts stood Tuesday morning, I'd probably have taken the deal too.

That's my whole problem with it, though. Nobody turns a player like this into a deadline rental by accident. A team that wanted Nelson for the long haul had all summer to show him, and the people in charge of that summer are the ones who just got fired. Nelson said last week, "I love it here. Met my wife here." He's playing in Seattle now.

The detail that tells you how guards get priced came from the other side. To make room for Nelson, Seattle waived Christian Haynes, a 2024 third-round guard who'd started its last five games. The Seahawks cut one third-round pick to make room for the guard they bought with another one. One of them has eight Pro Bowls.

Seattle wins this, and I don't think it's close. The defending champs are 4-3, two games behind San Francisco, 21st in pass block win rate, and they gave up 10 sacks and 26 quarterback hits in losses to the 49ers and Broncos. Charles Cross is going to miss time with an ankle injury, so Josh Jones is about to play left tackle. A guard doesn't fix that, and I won't pretend he does. What Nelson does is give them the option of sliding Grey Zabel to right guard, where he played in college, and put a guy who's only ever played left guard right back where he belongs. The Seahawks owe him about $9.8 million for the rest of the year. That's cheap for what walks in the door.

Indianapolis will turn that third-round pick into somebody, and maybe he's good. The odds he makes eight straight Pro Bowls are about the same as mine, and I've got the knees to prove it.

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