The Indianapolis Colts released cornerback Kenny Moore II on Thursday May 7, 2026, bringing an unceremonious end to one of the most unlikely nine-year careers in franchise history.
Moore had requested a trade in early April after the Colts and the veteran cornerback mutually agreed that it was time for him to find a new home. After more than a month of searching for a deal, no suitable trade was found. He was released instead.
The cap savings are between $7 million and $9.9 million depending on whether the team designates the move as pre- or post-June 1.
Moore had been entering the final year of a three-year, $30 million extension he signed in 2024 with a $9.5 million base salary and no guaranteed money remaining.
The Colts also released safety Nasir Adderley and waived linebacker John Bullock on Thursday.
General Manager Chris Ballard addressed Moore’s departure with the warmth of someone who genuinely did not want to be having this conversation.
“I think very highly of Kenny, not only me personally, but organizationally, and I know the city feels the same way,” Ballard said last month when the trade request was announced. He added:
“Talking to him, he just felt like it was time for a change. Nothing much more than that. And because of our respect level for Kenny we said, ‘Okay.’ Not always easy, especially when you get a pillar that’s been a pillar, not only on our team, but in the community. I think most of you know my relationship with him, it’s close. And so those are not always easy conversations, but they were respectful and good.”
Who Is Kenny Moore?
Kenny Moore II grew up in Valdosta, Georgia and attended Lowndes High School, where he did not play football until his senior year. He went to Valdosta State University, a Division II program, and went undrafted entirely in the 2017 NFL Draft.
The New England Patriots signed him as an undrafted free agent on May 5, 2017.
He spent the summer competing for a roster spot in Foxborough, and by all accounts impressed enough that his final-roster-cut release on September 2, 2017, was the kind of cut that came with regret rather than relief.
The next day, September 3, 2017, the first day of Chris Ballard’s tenure as the Indianapolis Colts’ general manager, the Colts claimed Moore off waivers.
He was the fifth cornerback on the depth chart in Indianapolis, behind four established veterans.
Moore was 5 feet 9 inches, came from a Division II school, had never been drafted, and had been cut by a team that had just won five Super Bowls.
He appeared in all 16 games of his rookie season and finished with 38 tackles, five pass deflections and one interception. The Colts had found something.
Moore’s Stellar Career
The numbers from nine years at one franchise are remarkable in ways that transcend what his size and draft status would have predicted. Moore played 132 games and made 111 starts, tied for the 23rd most appearances in Colts franchise history.
He accumulated 649 total tackles, 21 interceptions, 68 passes defensed, 11.5 sacks, 39 tackles for loss, six forced fumbles and 20 quarterback hits.
The interceptions deserve specific attention. Twenty-one interceptions rank third in Colts franchise history.
Four of those returned for touchdowns, including two in a single game against the Carolina Panthers in 2023, a Colts franchise record.
His 11.5 career sacks are tied for the sixth most ever recorded by a cornerback for any team in NFL history, per Pro Football Reference.
A slot corner who can generate double-digit sacks across a career is not a standard product of any system or scheme, it reflects an exceptional individual talent for diagnosing quarterback intentions and getting into the backfield from a position not typically associated with that skill.
His best season came in 2021, the year the description “Lightning in a Bottle” entered the Colts fan vocabulary.
He recorded 101 tackles, 13 passes defensed and four interceptions that year, earning his only Pro Bowl selection.
It was the performance that validated everything the Colts had seen since they claimed him off waivers in 2017 and the foundation of the $33.3 million extension he signed in 2019 and the $30 million extension he signed in 2024.
He was selected as a four-time team captain. He was nominated for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award in 2021, 2024 and 2025, the league’s most prestigious honor for players who demonstrate excellence both on the field and in their communities.
The Kicking The Stigma initiative, the Colts’ mental health awareness program, was one Moore was publicly associated with and consistently represented.
Why He Wanted Out of Indianapolis
The football reason is specific. Moore had been a key part of an Indianapolis defense built under coordinator Gus Bradley, the system specialist who had coordinated defenses in Jacksonville, Seattle and Los Angeles before arriving in Indianapolis.
Under Bradley’s scheme, Moore thrived. The combination of his instincts, his feel for opposing quarterback tendencies and the specific assignments Bradley’s defense put him in produced his most productive years.
After the Colts defense regressed to a 29th-place finish in 2024, Bradley was fired. New defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo arrived, the same Anarumo who had coordinated the Cincinnati Bengals defense during their Super Bowl run and their subsequent years of competitiveness.
Moore spent one season under Anarumo in 2025. His production was still solid, 55 tackles, 1.5 sacks, two forced fumbles, six passes defensed and one interception returned for a touchdown in 14 games, but it was the first season since 2022 that he recorded fewer than three interceptions, and something about the fit or the direction of the defense did not feel like the right home for the final chapter of his career.
He asked out. The Colts, in a gesture that reflects how they feel about the player and the person, immediately agreed to try to find a trade rather than just releasing him.
The month of trade searching produced nothing, no team was willing to pay the contract price his production warranted.
He was released instead of traded, which means he hits the free agent market with the freedom to choose his next destination.
What’s Next For The Colts?
The slot cornerback position Moore has occupied in Indianapolis for nine years will now belong to Justin Walley, the third-round pick from the 2025 NFL Draft who suffered a torn ACL in training camp during a joint practice with the Baltimore Ravens and missed his entire rookie season before playing a single regular-season snap.
Walley is now healthy heading into 2026 and is expected by the Colts organization to step into the starting nickel role.
The developmental arc of that transition is exactly the kind of thing that $7 to $9.9 million in cap savings helps facilitate, the room to build around a young starter rather than continuing to pay a veteran who no longer wants to be there.
Where Is Kenny Moore Headed Next?
The teams most frequently discussed as landing spots for Moore are the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Green Bay Packers and the San Francisco 49ers.
The Cowboys need secondary help after a difficult 2025.
The Chiefs lost significant secondary talent this offseason, trading Trent McDuffie to the Rams, watching Jaylen Watson follow him to Los Angeles, and seeing safety Bryan Cook sign with the Bengals, creating a genuine need for an experienced slot presence that Steve Spagnuolo historically values.
The Packers already traded for Moore’s former Colts teammate Zaire Franklin this offseason, and Franklin reportedly posted on social media after Moore’s trade request became news, potentially laying the groundwork for a reunion.
The 49ers had been named as a trade fit even before the release became official.
Moore will turn 31 in August. He is not a young player. But a cornerback who has started 111 games in nine seasons and still produces at the level he produced in 2025, against NFL competition, as a slot corner who can blitz and tackle and create turnovers, is not a player who will be unemployed for long.
The free agent market for his specific combination of skills and experience is real, and the fact that he had a mutual trade request rather than a forced release means he arrives at his next team as something other than a discarded roster casualty.
He was the fifth cornerback on the Colts depth chart on September 3, 2017. He left as the franchise’s third-leading interceptor in history with 11.5 career sacks. Whatever comes next, that arc is set.
