Colts' Irsay-Gordon addresses decisions to trade Franklin, Pittman

With the NFL league meetings underway, Indianapolis Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon met with local media, where she discussed the reasoning behind trading Michael Pittman and Zaire Franklin earlier this month.

Franklin was traded to the Packers, and in return, the team received defensive tackle Colby Wooden. Pittman was traded to the Steelers in what ended up being a late-round pick swap .

"I think Pitt and Zaire represent our culture and what we want our players to stand for," Irsay-Gordon said, via Colts.com . "But Chris (Ballard) also said we need to get younger and we have a hard cap, and we have to look at sort of what's best for the whole and we need to get some other people signed. Sometimes it's kind of like the next man up."

Both trades provided the Colts with needed salary cap relief at the time of these deals. Moving on from Franklin freed up almost $6 million in cap space, while trading Pittman created a hefty $24 million in cap space.

The moves, however, have left the Colts more thin at each of those two positions. Outside of Akeem Davis-Gaither at linebacker, there is almost no experience at this position group on the Colts roster.

At wide receiver, as of now, Nick Westbrook-Ikhine and Ashton Dulin will be competing for the WR3 role, with Anthony Gould and Laquon Treadwell as backup options.

Linebacker and receiver are two positions that need to be on Chris Ballard's radar entering the NFL draft.

This article originally appeared on Colts Wire: Why did Colts trade Zaire Franklin and Michael Pittman?