Getting rid of Todd Herremans is a good start for rebuilding the Colts. He was, like most veteran free agent signees, a big waste of money, salary cap space and a roster spot.

He started the Colts’ first two games of 2015 at right guard, and it was apparent that he had lost his quickness, as he was soundly beaten repeatedly. In 43 passing plays against the Jets in Game 2, he allowed Andrew Luck to be hit or hurried six times. I guess it’s acceptable for your QB to be pressured one out of every seven passing plays, but not if they all came at the expense of the same offensive lineman. Herremans also had a costly and sad-looking holding penalty in the third quarter.

It was clear that Herremans’ long and respectable career as an NFL guard was over. He was replaced by Hugh Thornton in the starting lineup and even though neither he nor Lance Louis have been very effective at guard this season, Herremans did not play another down after he had been benched. Instead, the line was shuffled, with right tackle Jack Mewhort moving to guard and veteran reserve Joe Reitz taking over at tackle. And when left tackle Anthony Castonzo was lost to injury, Reitz slid into that all-important position with rookie seventh-rounder Denzelle Goode (the kid from Mars Hill that nobody had heard of before the draft) taking over at right tackle, even though Herremans had started many games at right tackle for the Eagles back in the day.

So the Colts finally realized that carrying Herremans on the roster when they wouldn’t dare play him in a game was a bad idea. Eventually, the Colts waived Herremans; but since the likelihood of another team claiming him is nil, he was effectively released.

Say what you will about Ryan Grigson as a GM, he is good at negotiating contracts that are fairly easy for the Colts to back out of. Herremans was signed to a one-year $2.25 million deal of which $1 million was guaranteed. That means he still counts as $1 million against the cap this year and nothing next year.

That made me wonder how much the Colts would be helped or handicapped by if they loosed themselves of some other veterans in the offseason.

OLB Trent Cole

$6,250,000 savings ($7,250,000 cap hit minus $1,000,000 guaranteed, or dead, money)

ILB D’Qwell Jackson

$5,250,000 ($5,750,000 minus $500,000)

WR Andre Johnson

$5,000,000 ($7,500,000 minus $2,500,000)

OLB Erik Walden

$4,000,000 ($4,250,000 minus $250,000)

DT Arthur Jones

$2,300,000 ($5,600,000 minus $3,300,000)

S Mike Adams

$1,750,000 ($1,750,000 minus $0)

OLB Bjoern Werner

$1,418,198 ($2,512,491 minus $1,030,709)

HB Frank Gore

$1,000,000 ($4,000,000 minus $3,000,000)

And don’t worry about CB Greg Toler, he’s an unrestricted free agent after the season