Colts trade LB Zaire Franklin to Packers for DT Colby Wooden: Sources

The Indianapolis Colts are trading linebacker Zaire Franklin to the Green Bay Packers for defensive tackle Colby Wooden, league sources told The Athletic on Saturday. The trade can’t be finalized until the new league year begins at 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

Franklin, a seventh-round pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, spent all eight years of his career with the Colts. The former Pro Bowler led the NFL with 173 total tackles in 2024.

Wooden, a Packers fourth-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, is coming off his most productive season in Green Bay. He started 16 games and tallied career highs in tackles (50) and tackles for a loss (6).

What this means for the Packers

Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst was asked at the NFL combine last month which positions he thought needed the most competition this offseason. His answers: the secondary and inside linebacker. Acquiring Franklin from the Colts certainly addresses the latter, as the Packers add a 2024 second-team All-Pro who turns 30 in July.

This likely means Quay Walker, Green Bay’s 2022 first-round pick scheduled to hit the open market next week, is headed elsewhere in free agency. The Packers already feature 24-year-old Edgerrin Cooper as their best inside linebacker. Special teams captain Isaiah McDuffie played more than 500 defensive snaps at inside linebacker last season, and now the Packers have two starting-caliber players behind Cooper for whatever formation new coordinator Jonathan Gannon elects to play. Ty’Ron Hopper, a 2024 third-round pick who has played sparsely over the last two seasons, is also in the room.

In parting with Wooden, the Packers lose one of their primary run defenders who earned the nickname “The General” for his work in the heart of Green Bay’s defensive front. The Packers now likely need to address their interior defensive line in free agency and/or the draft. Only four players remain at the position: Devonte Wyatt, who faces a months-long rehab after suffering season-ending leg and ankle injuries on Thanksgiving, as well as Karl Brooks, Warren Brinson and Nazir Stackhouse. Wooden’s 2026 cap number is about $1.3 million, according to Over The Cap, while Franklin’s is about $7 million.

This is an interesting trade from the Packers’ perspective because Gutekunst prefers players in the prime of their careers.

A couple of weeks ago in Indianapolis, he told reporters: “Ideally, you’d love to get those guys in that window because that’s usually the best football they’re ever gonna play, is in that 26-29 range and they’re gonna be the healthiest and that’s what everything’s telling you.”

In swapping Wooden for Franklin, the Packers trade a defensive tackle who will be 25 when next season starts for a linebacker who will be 30 this summer. Not to mention Franklin is more expensive. However, the writing was on the wall for Walker, and Gutekunst clearly wanted another starting-caliber player to fill his spot, even if it meant giving up one of his starting defensive tackles.

“The free agency market is a much smaller market than people think, and there’s only so many guys that are that age that ever even hit the market,” Gutekunst added. “If one of our position groups needed something and the best avenue was to sign an older player for a short period of time, I’d have no problem with that.”

Franklin is under contract for two more seasons and will now join a defensive core of Micah Parsons, Xavier McKinney and Cooper trying to return the Lombardi Trophy to Green Bay.

What this means for the Colts

Franklin was recently put on the trading block as Indianapolis tried to get under the league’s salary cap, league sources told The Athletic. The Colts had been $4.7 million over the cap after placing the $37.8 million transition tag on quarterback Daniel Jones, per Over the Cap.

Indianapolis now has $154,289 in cap room, according to Over the Cap, but a team source told The Athletic that Indianapolis still has more work to do to be cap compliant. All NFL teams must be under the salary cap when the new league year starts Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET.

Trading Franklin was the Colts’ first move to create more cap space. Ideally, the Colts would also like to work out a long-term deal with Jones. That would allow them to spread his cap hit across multiple seasons and give them the flexibility to pursue and retain Alec Pierce, who is set to become one of the top unrestricted free-agent wide receivers on the market. Pierce has led the NFL in yards per catch each of the last two years, and he said Wednesday on the “Up & Adams Show” that he plans to test the market.

Franklin’s exit was likely hastened by the cap-saving measures it provides, combined with his underwhelming performance in 2025. Colts GM Chris Ballard said at the end of the season that the team’s defense needed to get younger and faster, and Franklin didn’t fit that bill moving forward.

A starter for the Colts since 2022, Franklin was not a good fit in Lou Anarumo’s system last season. Anarumo replaced Gus Bradley as the Colts’ defensive coordinator in 2025, and his scheme relied heavily on the linebackers’ coverage skills. That has never been Franklin’s strong suit, and he was repeatedly picked on. Opposing QBs held a 111.5 passer rating when targeting a player covered by Franklin last year, per Pro Football Reference, which was the highest mark of his career. He also allowed opposing signal callers to complete 74.2 percent of their passes for 513 yards and three TDs when targeting him.

Franklin also ruffled a few feathers within the organization in recent years with his frequent podcast appearances that often included trash talk directed at other teams and players. One of Franklin’s most embarrassing comments came when he made fun of Jones and the New York Giants early in the 2024 campaign, only for the Colts to lose to the Drew Lock-led Giants later that season (after Jones had been released). That loss eliminated the Colts from playoff contention, and Jones wound up becoming Franklin’s teammate in 2025.

The Colts will now have at least one new starting linebacker in 2026 after parting ways with Franklin. The other starting linebacker from last year, Germaine Pratt, is set to become an unrestricted free agent.

Despite how Franklin’s Colts tenure ended, he was still one of the biggest draft steals of the Ballard era. The 2018 seventh-round pick climbed the depth chart through the years, first emerging as a special teams ace and then morphing into an every-down linebacker. Franklin set a franchise record with 179 tackles in 2023 and led the league the following year with 173. He was also a six-time team captain.

The addition of Wooden gives the Colts more depth behind their talented but aging defensive tackle tandem of DeForest Buckner and Grover Stewart. Buckner’s 2025 campaign was cut short due to a neck injury that required surgery, but Ballard said at the combine that he expects the two-time All-Pro to resume his career in 2026.