For roughly a month now, we have known that the Indianapolis Colts lost a sixth-round pick after a conditional trade with the New York Jets didn’t meet the standards. Now, we know why.
When the Colts traded cornerback Nate Hairston to the Jets before the 2019 season it was in exchange for a sixth-round conditional pick. Those conditions were that Hairston had to be active for a certain amount of games, which was agreed upon by the teams.
Hairston was only active for 11 games and because of that, the Colts received no draft compensation in the trade, per Kevin Bowen of 1070 The Fan.
Despite trading cornerback CB-Nate Hairston last August to the New York Jets, the Colts did not receive any draft compensation from that deal. Hairston was active for just 11 games last season and did not meet the ‘active games’ mark that the two sides had agreed upon when originally making the trade.
It certainly is odd that the Colts would agree to a trade that potentially could result in them getting nothing back for Hairston. That doesn’t necessarily seem like Chris Ballard’s M.O., but maybe they simply didn’t value Hairston anymore.
The trade did happen right around the time of cuts so the Colts potentially wanted to get something in exchange for Hairston if they were planning on cutting him.
Regardless, the Colts lost their sixth-round conditional pick and while some of the reasoning does seem odd, they now officially have eight selections in the draft.