A Deep Dive Into The 2025 Indianapolis Colts

A Deep Dive Into The 2025 Indianapolis Colts

You guys, I’m telling you, this team is not as bad as you think they are. [Music] Welcome in to the reveal of the number 21 team in my power rankings heading into the 2025 NFL season. Today, we take a deep dive into the Indianapolis Colts, a team that so many of you have made it quite clear in the comments that I am quote unquote too high on this team. And to be fair, this series is how I rank these teams heading into week one, not necessarily how I predict them to finish the season. This team certainly does not have the glitz and glamour and upside of some of the teams we have previewed to this point in the series. But that said, I think people forget this team has hovered around 500, sniffed the playoffs with the likes of Gardner Mchu and Joe Flacco, and yes, Anthony Richardson as their quarterback. And yes, they did sign a very boring Daniel Jones to compete for a starting job this season, but I do think there are a lot of good aspects to this team. I’m really excited to break that down in today’s video. And I think you can even make an argument that this is the best version or could be the best version of this Colts team that we’ve seen over the last two years. So, should make for some interesting conversations and a very fun video here today. Before we do get started, if you could do me a huge favor, take just a second to hit that like button down below. It’s a free and easy little thing that really does support this series and this channel. Also, make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss any of our 32 deep dives throughout this summer. And lastly, do not go anywhere because we have an awesome interview. Zack Hicks from the Locked on Colts podcast makes his return to the series after I ran out of time to invite him last season. Uh, but I had some heavy-hitting questions for this Colts team surrounding the passing of Jim Ers and the quarterback situation among some other big topics for this team. He navigated those conversations and had some great answers. So, do not go anywhere. You’re not going to want to miss that interview at the end of the episode. But, let’s go ahead and get started with this team’s off season, where they got better, where they got worse, where they may have stayed the same. And as the Colts like to do, they don’t really make these big sweeping changes. This is one of the heavier draft and develop style front offices in the league. So, every year it feels like these lists aren’t anything crazy. Um, but they did make a big change with the defensive coordinator firing Gus Bradley, whose cover three heavy system seemingly had run its time in the modern framework of the NFL. and they go and get Lou and Arumo who the Bengals part ways with. Lou is coming off a tough year with the Bengals. They really ran out of talent in Cincinnati. There are some questions about Lou, but I do think there is very reasonable optimism that this will be an upgrade with their overall defensive coaching. So, I said hopefully upgraded for the coaching room. But then with the roster at quarterback, as we mentioned, they are going forward uh or at least bringing in Daniel Jones to compete with Anthony Richardson. We will obviously have lots to discuss with this QB room when we get to that portion of the video. Movement beyond that, they do say goodbye to Joe Flacco, who ended up playing about half of the games last year, a little bit less, 43% of their snaps, and they do draft Riley Leonard out of Notre Dame in the sixth round. So, look, Daniel Jones, not the most exciting addition, but to me, this is a slight upgrade. I still think Daniel Jones is a slight upgrade over Joe Flacco. Uh, so we did put that down for the quarterback room, but then at running back, also slightly upgraded. They did some good stuff with the RB depth that has quietly been uh poor for this team in recent years. So, they bring in Khalil Herbert, also from Cincinnati, and they draft DJ Giddens out of Kansas State in the fifth round. And their only loss there is Trey Surman who did struggle last season. So slightly upgraded with the RB room at tight end. This was really their main big upgrade. They spend their first round pick on Tyler Warren out of Penn State. They do lose Kylin Gransen. Not too much to worry about there. Certainly upgraded in that tight end room, if not massively upgraded depending on how good Tyler Warren is as a rookie. No change at wide receiver at all. Staying neutral there. You could argue for slightly upgraded, however, because Michael Pitman did play through a major back injury last year. I decided to leave that one off. Um, but at least worth bringing it up here at the offensive line slightly downgraded. And I know the names are big here with Ryan Kelly and Will Fry gets a massive contract by the Vikings. Had Will Fry actually been available for even half of the season last year? Yes. I would say a full-on downgrade for the offensive line. Um, but you do have to remember Will Fry only played in five games for this team. Only 25% of the snaps they’ve been dealing without having Will Fry. And then Ryan Kelly is a big name. He played over half of their snaps. He is another guy that has been consistently banged up for this team. Still a nice player, but didn’t necessarily play up to his namesake last season. They could have brought him back if they wanted. and Tanner Bordellini stepped in and played damn near Ryan Kelly’s level last season. So, the name losses are big there. And I did say slightly downgraded on the offensive line, but I really don’t think the Colts are panicking about these losses internally. And a big reason I say that is that they really didn’t do much to replace those shoes on the roster. They did spend a fourth round pick on the developmental Jaylen Travis out of Iowa State, but they do have some guys drafted specifically last season. Matt Gon Calves in the third round and Tanner Bordellini in the fourth round that they are ready to hand those jobs off to. So, nothing crazy with the offensive moves, but overall probably a little bit better than they were last year, if not a good bit better, depending on what Tyler Warren does for them. But then uh on the defensive side of things, some good, some bad. So really not much to speak of on the interior of the defensive line. Tavan Bryan, Rayquin Davis were rotational players for them and they bring in Neville Gallamore to be a rotational player. Just not a whole lot to say there. So saying neutral with the interior of the defensive line. On the edge, they do lose Dio Odingbo who had a very good year for them. He gets a nice contract with the Colts. That is a loss. Um, but they do have a couple of players available for them this year that they did not have last year. Number one is Samson Ibukham, who had a really nice first year with the Colts and then tore his Achilles before last season. So, obviously going to be TBD in terms of if he can stay healthy and how good he will be, but he definitely is projected to be ready to go right now. And then they spend that second round pick on JT Tui Mallalo. So, I feel pretty good saying this is at least neutral with those two bodies to quote unquote replace Dio. Uh, but there’s reason to believe this could be upgraded as well on the edge. At linebacker, I do say slightly downgraded. They lose EJ Speed who has his ups and downs. Um, but he did play 87% of their snaps and, you know, he’s a fun playmaker, no longer in that linebacker room. They are really counting on the the young Jaylen Carile to step into that LB2 spot unless he surprises. Probably going to be tough to get what EJ Speed gave them. Nothing major there, but I do say slightly downgraded with the linebackers at cornerback. Definitely upgraded. They don’t lose anybody yet. They add Shvarius Ward to a large free agent contract coming off a bit a bit of a wasted season for him. a tragic season for him. Uh dealt with the loss of his baby daughter. Um going for new horizons here, a new contract. Uh they should be pretty damn excited about Chavarius Ward who just a year ago certainly was a top 10 quarterback in the NFL. But beyond that, they draft Justin Wall-E out of Minnesota in the third round. They really like him. That was a bit of a surprise. And then they get Ju Guu Brent’s theoretically back as well. He’s had a hard time staying on the field. Um, but if nothing else for depth, Ju Guu Brent’s nice addition in that sense as well. Only played uh two games for them last year, not even a full two games. Uh, so upgraded at cornerback and then at safety, slightly upgraded for me. It’s become a bit of a running joke that I certainly would not have given Cam Binham $15 million a year like this Colts team did. I think he’s a very good, balanced safety. Um, but you know, Julian Blackman did start damn near every game for them last year and had a decent year for them last year. So, I do think it’s slightly upgraded going from Blackman to Binham. Um, but probably not as upgraded as the price tag might indicate. And then with the special teams, this is slightly downgraded slash to be determined. Matt Gay leaves their kicker here. Um, and they’re going with Spencer Shrader, who actually did play in a couple games for them last year. He played for three different teams last year and actually played pretty well. Um, but definitely not established like Matt Gay is. But overall, I think this was a good offseason, maybe even a better off season than people realize for Chris Ballard and this front office who him and uh uh Shane Stiken, the head coach, head into a very big year. Had a lot of kind of hot seat ownership change with the passing of Jim Ers. uh conversations with Zack Hicks and kind of what that means for the the state of this organization, this franchise. Um, but they needed to have a good offseason. I think they did. Uh, the only downsides to this offseason is they are really like the Colts like to do depending on some of those mid-range draft picks to develop and step into starting roles with some of their losses, which is inevitably going to add a little bit of volatility to those position groups and how good they can be there. But next up, we are going to talk about this Colts coaching staff. I think a lot of people are sleeping on this team and sleeping on this coaching staff in many ways. But before we talk about them, let me tell you about what I’m sleeping on, and that is a bare mattress. Now, literally sleeping on it, but was sleeping on it. Man, this thing is super comfortable. They have designed a premium fiberglass-free mattress that will upgrade your sleep, improve your overall quality of life, and by the way, they send it right to your front door conveniently with no added shipping costs. And this thing is so comfortable because before you order, you take Bear’s sleep quiz. You give them your sleeping preference. Do you sleep on your back, your side? You give them your body type, and they will match you to the perfect mattress for you. For me, I’m a side sleeper, so they gave me the Elite Hybrid. And like I said, man, I I think I was sleeping on this type of mattress. It is just crazy comfortable. It’s like sleeping on a cloud. It helps me sleep better through the night. I’ve seen my sleep scores, which I like to track through some other apps. 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This is a higher discount than you’re going to find at any on-site location. So, make sure you check them out while you can. So, big thanks to Bear for sponsoring today’s deep dive. And by the way, if you do buy one, make sure you let them know that I sent you in their post-purchase survey. It’ll support my channel. But let’s get into this coaching staff here as well as what this team’s going to look like schematically speaking on both sides of the ball. Maybe some Colts fans wondering what this new look defense is going to look like with Lu Anarumo coming in as well. But starting with Shane Stiken, the head coach and overseer of this offense with Jim Bob Cter there as his deacto offensive coordinator as well. I get that things have become a little bit more stale with Shane Stiken here. The Colts missed the playoffs. they they fall just short last year. Um, anytime you’re you’re multiple years into a coach’s tenure and um things are stagnating, there’s there’s going to be a lack of buzz, but I think that is exclusively tied to the quarterback situation. And this reminds me a lot of what we talked about with Brian Dable where I think we’re talking about a very good head coach who who kind of his one crippling mistake being Stiken’s involvement in handpicking Anthony Richardson obviously with um Chris Ballard hand in hand. It’s not all Shane Stiken’s fault, but that draft pick has just borderline gone miserably and it has left Shane Stiken having to deal with uh you know Richardson who has been extremely streaky when he’s been out there. Gardner Mshu and Joe Flacco and it’s really freaking hard to make the playoffs when that is your quarterback room. And I think the fact that this team has been so close is much more of a credit to Shane Stiken than it is something that we should be really holding against him. Now, has he been able to climb up the coaching ranks necessarily with that lack of high-end success? No. I have him ranked as our 17th overall head coach for this season. As far as the kind of uh offensive coach rankings go, they get B-grades across the board. highly respectable. 10th to 13th for pass game design, 12th to 15th for run game design. So, we’re really sniffing right about the the top half of the league in terms of how I overall perceive Shane Stiken. But unfortunately, for Shane Stikken’s sake, this is the not for-long league. And this is timing up with the the passing of Jim Ers and his daughter stepping in to run this team and um you know potentially looking to see results and assess this season and potentially make some big changes after this year. And we had some really good conversations with Zack Hicks about what that that sort of change in the ownership structure with Carly Ersay Gordon uh kind of taking charge here is is going to mean for this organization and for Shane Stiken, but certainly a big year in terms of needing to see results. I don’t know that that necessarily means they have to make the playoffs. It might be that simple. Um, but certainly get good play out of either Daniel Jones or Anthony Richardson, compete for the playoffs, and feel like this team is is very close uh to accomplishing some special stuff after this season. And then maybe either Richardson is heading in the right direction or Stiken and potentially Chris Ballard next to him could get a chance to select another quarterback and hopefully a deeper draft next year. But it is all up in the air right now. but is all going to be a resultsdriven assessment here. Putting a lot of pressure on Shane Stiken here. If he does get fired, I would very quickly look for him to be a offensive coordinator extraordinaire uh as an excellent hire for somebody and then potentially like one year later getting a a different crack at this cuz I really think he’s done a good job here. Maybe not a great job necessarily, but again, it’s tough when those are your quarterbacks. But let’s talk about his scheme and kind of why I like what he does here so much. The the Colts offense is is very unique by modern NFL standards. There’s just not a ton of true spread style offenses in the NFL, and that’s what the Colts do here. The Eagles are really the other one and that’s because Shane Stiken really built that offense with Jaylen Herz in Philadelphia that has obviously had so much success there. But in a league really stamped by uh the Shanahan offenses with much more under center run games and wide zone offenses um and the kind of play action boot game off of that. This looks very different. This is a almost exclusively shotgun built offense. they will go under center with some of their heavier package run game stuff. And and honestly, Shane Stiken has other influences that he draws upon. He he coached with Norf Turner and Ken Wizenhut and Mike McCoy, much more kind of classical NFL minds. So, I don’t want to act like they’re just only in shotgun, but that is kind of the heartbeat of what they do is come out in um you know, 2x two formations or 3x one formations really with the objective of spreading out your defense. So, you can’t load up the box with seven or or plus defenders. So, make things easier on the offensive line, on the running back with more open gaps up front, obviously. Um, but also with your playmakers spread out, the threat of any given moment, you can run an RPO or a bubble screen or a quick hitting pass to the outside, get the ball in the hands of playmakers, guys like Josh DS, Tyler Warren, Michael Pitman, guys that are really good with the ball in their hands. treat that quick passing game as an extension of the run game and just put so much pressure on the defense where they basically have to pick what they want to do where they either have to collapse into the box to try to stop the run because the Shane Stiken and the Colts going back to Jaylen Herz and the idea of drafting Anthony Richardson and even yes signing Daniel Jones who’s good as a quarterback rushing threat. Okay, so you you basically can’t put more than six people in the box, otherwise those quick outlets to these playmakers are going to be a huge problem. So it basically always ends up five on six at the line of scrimmage with five offensive linemen to, you know, four four defensive linemen and two linebackers and then they get that extra numbers advantage with the threat of the quarterback in the run game. So you use read options and leave someone unblocked where they have to account for the the quarterback keep aspect and then it is just a hat-on hat run game which makes things again so much easier for everybody and then yeah if that safety starts to creep in that’s when you get the RPO to Tyler Warren or Josh DS or these guys that are really tough after the catch. That’s what the spread offense is all about. And they tap into it and build this offense around it as good as anybody saved for really Philadelphia. And the simplicity of this scheme and frankly how well it fits Daniel Jones’s skill set as a quick passer, as a designed rushing threat, that really is a reason why I do find myself a little bit higher on this Colts team that I do think this offense can function pretty damn well. Certainly with, you know, Anthony Richardson, they’ve they’ve been streaky, but his skill set, if he can stay healthy, still has a ton of potential in year three here, but yes, even Daniel Jones to just play point guard, get involved in the design run game, and raise the floor of this offense that is really, really high when it’s constructed and called this way by Shane Stiken. Um, it’s a it’s a wellbuilt, wellthoughtout approach by this offense. And I I just love to watch it because we see so many of those Shanahan style offenses. This is a little bit different here unless you’re watching an Eagles game really. And the last thing I should probably say because that was a very run game focused conversation is Shane Stiken is really good at um knowing that his scheme is going to force you to kind of show your hand in many ways kind of declare how you want to attack this offense. And then he’s able to scheme up deep shots to guys like Alec Pierce or just have plays where before the mic cuts off 15 seconds in, he he can literally tell the quarterback, “Hey, Michael Pitman’s got the one-on-one or or whoever it’s going to be iceo on the outside. It was AJ Brown in Philadelphia. This is the play. We want to take that one-on-one shot to the outside.” Um, and trying to find that good matchup against a corner where that receiver can win, too. So, he’s he’s really good at at kind of establishing the run through this spread offense first and then understanding there’s there’s only one way to defend that and using the counter punch to that through the passing game. So, it’s a big reason why I I’m a big fan of Shane Syen and still think things can work out for him either here or somewhere else depending on how this ultimately goes. But let’s flip over to the defensive side of things and talk about Lou and Arumo getting brought in here from Cincinnati. And man, you rewind the clock about two years, Louo was probably just behind like Steve Spagnolo and some of the other top like defensive-minded head coaches. He was right behind those guys as one of the premium sort of top 10 perceived defensive coordinators in the league. some of those playoff performances that he and his defense had specifically in 2021, 2022, just spectacular efforts where so many coordinators, whether it’s offensive or defense, they kind of want to do what they do, run that run what they run and force you to stop what they do, if that makes sense. And Colts fans are very familiar with that with Gus Bradley who it’s kind of like live by the cover three, die by the cover three. Going back to those Seattle Seahawks Legion of Boom style defenses kind of that style of you know approaching defense. Luanorumo is one of the few coordinators kind of like a Steve Spagnolo or Bill Bich was always so good at this, but a coordinator that kind of takes the opposite approach of really studying and understanding what it is his opponent is trying to do to his defense and then having the um flexibility to adapt week to week his game plan. be a cover one press team one week, be an offzone more conservative approach the next week, be a blitzheavy team team one week and only rush four the next. Like that is kind of Lennar Rumo’s uh the the best part of Lanna Rumo is the flexibility that his defense provides. Now that does put a lot of pressure on the players to be able to do all of that stuff. It puts a lot of pressure on the front office to be able to find enough players that can be good at everything. Maybe not elite at everything, but you have to at least be competent in any sort of, you know, whether it’s man versus zone or all the, you know, different types of things you ask players from your front seven. Um, it just it it it’s much harder to play that style than to just construct your defense one way, build around certain skill sets, and go from there. And what we saw in Cincinnati certainly was they ran out of talent. They became more one-dimensional and they couldn’t do what Lou wanted them to do and it just it just stopped working. And Cincinnati ends up going with kind of a change of scenery approach. They fire Lua Rumo, but he does immediately get fired here into Indianapolis because he is so well respected. And ultimately, I do still believe in Luan Rumo. think it is well worth it for the Colts to take a shot on him. Now, he’s not as highly perceived after really a couple of down years for that defense at this point. It wasn’t just last season. 2023 uh was tough, too. And they had a lot of coverage bust from their safeties and it’s now two years of kind of Luarumo uh and his kind of fall from grace, if you will. But it hasn’t been like to the point obviously where I don’t believe he can’t get back on track. As far as their rankings and lose rankings with this defense, they come into the season with Bminus grades across the board, which gets them 22nd to 27th in pass defense coaching. Still very solid, but there are a lot of great defensive coaches in the league. And then same range there for the run defense coaching, 23rd to 28th. So certainly room for Lou to get back on track and climb those rankings. But I am excited for him to get this opportunity. And I’m maybe even more excited for Colts fans because Lou’s defense could not be any more different than what Colts fans have dealt with with Gus Bradley for the last few years. Uh where Gus Bradley and the Colts, it was basically like three coverages and leading the league in cover three or at least being top three in cover three every single year of Gus Bradley’s time here. He he called it the second most out of anybody in the league last year. Um but it’s like okay cover three about 50% of the time and then they were also in the they were ninth in cover two last year. So that was kind of their change up and then yeah they would occasionally run man coverage. Everybody eventually has to run some man but they were pretty low in manto man. But that was basically the core makeup of their three coverages. Not a ton of blitzing, not a ton of the kind of pre-nap disguise that everybody in the league is kind of trying to implement some bit of the the fangio McDonald style of the the pre- snap two shell, you know, rotating safeties concept. Not a ton of that with the Colts last year. And there were so many games where offenses just knew exactly where they were going to be, knew exactly how to attack them. It’s there’s going to be like it’s it’s just so different because the the plus side of August Bradley defense is it’s about as simple as it gets and it does allow your guys to play fast and know their assignments. Um but lose defense, yes, puts more pressure on these guys to understand everything and be able to do everything, but you really don’t know how they’re going to attack you. And you look at the coverage splits and blitzing splits of a Luanorumo defense, pretty much everything, whether it’s cover six, cover four, cover three, cover two, cover one, cover zero, all the way down to getting creative with some of these new uh quarters inspired uh fire zone blitzes that like Brian Flores has gotten really good at running. Um, we’re seeing more and more of that these days where you’re able to still blitz with the threat of those two shell kind of cover four structures, that top down style zone. Um, you know, for a long time fire zones were just cover three fire zones and Colts fans are very familiar with that. Um, but it’s a rising trend to kind of blitz out of quarters and Lennar Rumo experimented with that a good bit last year as well. But he is pretty much like down the board for everything. 16th in man coverage. Uh, 12th in cover zero. Colts fans will like that because the Colts were 30th. Um, cover two they were 11th. Cover six, they were ninth. Um, for some reason my filter doesn’t give me quarters, so I can’t uh confirm, but I would imagine they were middle of the pack in quarters. And then because they are so balanced, they actually run a lot less cover three than everybody. Um, they’re 25th in cover three because that is everybody’s kind of go-to coverage. So, if you are more of a balanced approach, um, you’re going to be lower in cover three and higher and everything else um, relative to the rest of the league, if that makes sense. But I think you get the point. Like Luenarumo is very flexible, does a little bit of everything, puts a lot of pressure on himself, his players, the front office to give him the right players, but when things work, this thing can be a thing of beauty. And Lennar Rumo could absolutely uh become a premium defensive coordinator once again here handinhand with Shane Stiken. So I’m excited to see him get back on track. Hopefully he can do it, but yes, the last couple years have been a little bit harder to watch for him for sure. Um, and there is a bit of a downside that maybe he is just a little bit in over his head trying to be as multiple as he is. And maybe there is something to be said about more of the um, you know, simplify your defense and uh, let guys play fast and know their assignments uh, style to to coaching as well. So, we’ll see where this thing goes. I’m certainly excited about it. But that does conclude our conversation on this coaching staff. Obviously, a staff I do believe in. I very much point to the failures of their ability to find the right quarterback here for why things haven’t gone quite according to plan and frankly why it’s possible that Shane Stiken is actually on the hot seat this season. But I do think there’s a lot of upside with this group to frankly be one of the better coaching staffs in the league if things go right for this team. And certainly this coaching staff still today is a reason I am a bit higher on this Colts team because the last two years they have been very steady despite any sort of steady hand at quarterback. And that’s a great transition to the roster breakdown where there is a lot of talent on this roster that I think people are sleeping on. But we do have to start with the quarterback room which is the biggest of all questions for the Colts. And if not a question, it is just kind of a stale area of this team that is very likely going to limit their upside unless something really goes right with Anthony Richardson at this point heading into year three. But I do have the Colts overall ranking 30th at quarterback, 29th in passing. They do have a very good grade for the QB run multiplier. However, they rank inside the top 10 there. They would have been inside the top five if it was full go with Anthony Richardson. But even Daniel Jones is very good in that department. Just a quick series note here before we break these two guys down. Many people will be saying, “Wait, I thought the Browns were 29th in QB passing.” Well, when news broke that Richardson got hurt again and it is trending towards Daniel Jones being the starter here, it did ever so slightly bump up the Colts QB passing ranking. They did come down in the run multiplier, but that is why you now see the Colts with this 29th ranking. Again, there’s going to be news that changes some of their stuff. There’s going to be stuff I see on film that leads to little subtle tweaks. There’s going to be stuff that I just missed when I put these rankings together in May. I know the diehard fans of the series get a little frustrated when you see like the same ranking on some of these guys, but it’s just the nature of the beast. If we’re going to have this massive fourmonth endeavor here, there’s going to have to be some tweaks and adjustments. I will post the final rankings when the series is done uh for free over on my Patreon, so you guys can um look back on it when the series is done with with any of those adjustments we have to make. But let’s get back on track here and just kind of pick someone to start with because this could go in a lot of different directions. Frankly, I do want to start with Daniel Jones because I think it is ever so slightly in his favor, maybe 52, 53% that he is at least the week one starter and then kind of like I’ve alluded to, I think he could play well enough that he just kind of holds on to this job. But obviously the allure of Anthony Richardson and his physical traits and what he can do um even at a higher level in the run game, there’s always going to be a fascination in his upside and him getting back out there at some point, especially if he’s using that quote unquote opportunity kind of having his job taken by Daniel Jones. Like that is embarrassing, right? Like nobody wants to be the former fourth overall pick that Daniel Jones comes in on a bridge quarterback and takes your job. that can be, you know, the biggest form of motivation for anybody. Not that Richardson necessarily needs it, but it’s it is good to have a fire lit under your ass if if you need to get better, um whether you were a motivated person or not. So, um there is always going to be the allure of them going back to Anthony Richardson if things look good for him at some point. But back to Daniel Jones for a second, like he is going to head into camp with the upper hand here because even if Richardson is looking like he’s going to be able to kind of compete in training camp at some point, go through the preseason, get an opportunity to win this job from Daniel Jones, Jones has been able to present himself to these players, start building a chemistry with these guys, um, learn the playbook, kind of I like that term, present the idea of him as the starter to this team and as long as he’s playing okay, and I really do think for all of the reasons we talked about with how this offense is constructed, what he can do with his legs where he is a legitimately underrated athlete in terms of designed rushing ability. Is he Anthony Richardson? Absolutely the hell not. But he did have 805 rushing yards and seven rushing touchdowns in 2022 when he was at his best and got that contract with the Giants. He has legit speed and vision and even a little bit of toughness and power. Um certainly enough to be a function in the design run game that will raise the floor of this offense. And then he is a very good point guard. He can run the RPO game, the quick passing game, do his best to get the ball in the short to intermediate game into the hands of these playmakers. And as long as that is happening, I think the Colts very likely will talk themselves into the sort of floor of Daniel Jones that it’s a there’s a comfort there with what this team has been through a quarterback the last two years. The idea of really from the start of training camp potentially all the way through the season to just have the same quarterback that fits your offense and gives your team some form of an identity and consistency. Even if the bar isn’t as high, the the upside isn’t as high of an Anthony Richardson. I do think there’s a good chance that this team ends up talking themselves into that. And I actually think the final product again could look better there with a Daniel Jones than a lot of people realize. I think that this is a perfect spot for him to pick to go to where he could play something like he did in 2022 where he was in the 20 to 24 range of starting quarterbacks in the NFL that season. The Giants weren’t able to continue to support him with that infrastructure, but that’s a best case scenario for Daniel Jones is to get back to that level. If that happens, the Colts are going to be very solid offensively. In many cases, they they can be a little bit of a pain in the ass to deal with with all the playmakers we’re going to talk about in a minute. Um, not necessarily explosive, like they they almost certainly would be dead last in the league in average depth of target. And poor Alec Pierce is basically going to be rendered useless in this offense as a deep threat. Um, so it’s going to have its limitations under Daniel Jones. We know that a Daniel Jones offense will have its limitations, but can it be a solid offense run through him with him as the conductor of this well-built, efficient train? I think that’s very possible. I just do. And it’s crazy to find myself as the leader of the Daniel Jones fan club at this point. Um, but I I guess if that does happen, the next question is like what’s next? I I do think at least because Daniel Jones already got that sort of Baker Mayfieldesque contract, I don’t think the Colts would turn around and give him a 4-year $140 million contract. Um because I think the league feels very good about what Daniel Jones is. But could he turn into a very capable bridge quarterback for the next two years where the Colts are looking for another dart throw at a long-term option at quarterback that there is a needle to be thread there with Daniel Jones coming in here and I think Shane Stiken has a vision for that possibility. Um so that’s kind of where I’m at with Daniel Jones. I’m obviously not saying he is in that 20 to 24 range of quarterbacks. It’s been several years since we’ve seen that, but he is just 28 years old. it is possible. But the other reality, the other side of the coin here is that maybe things do go well for Anthony Richardson that certainly feels less likely uh than anything at this point. Number one, because of the injuries. Like yes, he sounds like he’s had a good recovery and is going to be good to go for camp, but how long does that last? This does feel like a guy that with his physical play style, he takes hits, he gets banged up. reminds me a lot of like Cam Newton and Andrew Luck where they were big quarterbacks and you think, “Oh, they can take a beating.” Well, those were some of the most beat up quarterbacks year in year out um than anybody. And and it feels very similar with Anthony Richardson. So, even if he gets healthy, can he stay healthy enough to actually develop? It is so hard to develop when you’re constantly on and off the practice field. You’re in and out of games. It’s it’s just you need that baseline of consistency with availability first. And that feels like the biggest question with Anthony Richardson, but then his actual play is a major question mark. Unfortunately, he did play 11 games last year. And unfortunately, we didn’t see the gains as a passer that we would have liked to see. we still saw a quarterback that is all in flashes as a passer. Now, I do think we saw the high-end stuff in the run game that um frankly wasn’t all there in his rookie season. like we knew it was likely to happen and was in there with his athletic levers at 250 lbs with blazing speed, you know, like yeah, it speaks for itself what he can do in the design run game and at the goal line and short yardage and all that, but unfortunately all of the issues with his passing, um, which just comes down to consistency, whether it’s consistently making the right reads, avoiding big mistakes, consistency with his accuracy where he can, as we’ve seen drop absolute dimes deep down the field, but accuracy to me is not can you drop dimes, it is can you consistently drop dimes and Richardson unfortunately since he entered the league has been towards the bottom of the league and missed throw percentage and that happened again last year. just the mechanics, the timing, whatever it is that leads into throwing accurate passes. He has missed that going back to college uh as well where he sprayed a lot of passes. So, he hasn’t been able to rein that in. But, I think what gets so frustrating with Anthony Richardson is you do see those high leverage NFL reads where he progresses through a defense. He’s not like some true first read quarterback. He he isn’t even like uh he doesn’t even have like abysmal pocket presence or anything like that. Like there are moments where he really senses the pressure well and can manage the pocket. There’s other times where he gets flustered and bails out of clean pockets, but for the most part it’s like you can put together, you know, you can you can pick up all the puzzle pieces and put together 60 snaps of like brilliant quarterback play with Anthony Richardson. Um, but from quarter to quarter, game to game, week to week, um, it’s there’s just no no level of of I hate to keep using the the C-word, consistency, but that is what it is all about with Richardson. Um, so no one no one can sit here and question the upside of him. Um, but I do think that the the frustration has mounted with him. And I think if you’re this Colts team, the idea of just having a nice floor, kind of taking a Prius down the freshly paved highway as opposed to jumping it on this exciting Ricky Racky wooden roller coaster that hasn’t seen maintenance in the last 40 years. That That’s the Anthony Richardson experience. And I mean, what would you rather what would you rather hop on to get to your destination? It’s it’s a it’s a probably a poor metaphor, but that’s kind of the way this is going with the Colts. It’s it’s very fascinating. I understand why people look at this quarterback room and say, “Yeah, the Colts should rank much much lower in these rankings.” I I do understand that. And and if it is Daniel Jones, certainly the upside is not there of some of these other teams led by the excitement of Michael Pennix and even Bryce Young and Sam Darnold even. Like, yeah, I understand that argument as well. But I do have confidence in Shane Stiken um to hopefully navigate this situation. But also with the 21st overall team ranking, I’m not saying that’s certain either. Um but yeah, there’s your QB room. I I guess we should at least mention Riley Leonard, I don’t see a starting caliber passer at the NFL level. I didn’t even have a draftable grade on Riley Leonard, but of all the landing spots, it was like here in Philadelphia, I get it. At least lean into what he can do as a runner. He’s tough as He is athletic. Like in a in a worst case scenario, could he step in and you put together a competent game plan to play frisky with this with this team? Yeah, I I do believe that. But with that conversation now out of the way, it’s it’s pretty peachy from here on out. Man, there’s a couple other questions to talk about here, but this is really a good roster, which is the core reason why this Colts team ranks higher in this series than many expect. And that begins with this group of weapons. Such a good unit. They have good high-end talent. Um, but even beyond that, it goes back to what we said about the Seahawks in our last deep dive where, yeah, it’s like, okay, your best options are Jackson Smith and Jigben, Cooper Cup, you know, those skill sets are a little bit more redundant. I love a good group of weapons where everybody fills the right role, everybody can do what they do best and increase their own efficiency. that complimentary group of skill sets. It doesn’t get a whole lot better in terms of sliding guys into the right roles for how an NFL passing game is quote unquote supposed to be constructed than how the Colts have built this group. You have every pocket of skills that you need from your group of weapons with these guys here. And they have depth as well. So, they come in with a B-grade uh ranking kind of just inside the top half of the league in weapons, 14th to 17th. It’s obviously an overall asset for this team in this passing game. But let’s go through it. You got Michael Pitman, your bigbodied physical masher. He can play inside, he can play outside, he run blocks. He’s tremendous after the catch as well. That’s probably where he’s most underrated and has won me over um in many ways. Like I do think he’s limited from being an alpha. Uh in fact, I would I would even argue in an ideal situation, if the Colts were ever going to be top 10 in weaponry, for example, he’s probably a two or like a 1B at best. But where I at least consider the idea that he could be a oneb for an offense is just how how he has that Debo Samuel trait where for one reason or another and and some other players have this too. I I think Amanra St. Brown has this as well, but he’s he’s just faster once the ball’s in his hands. He’s not going to stack you on a go ball on the outside or dice you up within his routes with a ton of speed. Um, but you throw the ball to him on a tunnel screen, a bubble screen, or when he catches it in stride on a dig route, like he just has juice after the catch, and it gives him a plus trait to again make me feel better about him um as your sort of 1B, especially if you have such a perfect construction of skill sets around him. But he’s your smasher. He’s going to He’s awesome on slants, too. just like kind of that basketball ability to box guys out, win those tough catches, convert a third and four. Like this team’s going to run the ball a lot, so they’re going to get a lot of third and shorts. Um just, you know, run that RPO slant. He’s got a one-on-one matchup. Throw it out in front of him. Boom. He’s going to snag that thing. He is a career 54% contested catch win rate guy. Um and a lot of those come on those outreached hands on digs and slants. Now, he does head into the year with a little bit of a question mark next to him. He’s coming off a a back injury last season that he played through. He played almost every game for this Colts team last year, but he clearly was not quite himself from an an efficiency standpoint. He still was tough. He still made some plays. He still had 808 yards on 69 receptions. Still came down with the exact contested catch win rate that he did the year before at that 53.6%. Um, but I do think just a little bit of that juice, especially maybe with the run after catch stuff, he goes from 518 yards after the catch in 2023 to almost half of that at 261. Um, that is almost exactly half in total yak. Uh, so that was a main difference with him was just a little bit of that burst. Uh, but I think there’s optimism with him just at he’s not even 28 years old uh yet that that that back will make a recovery. um it’s always going to be scary with a back injury. So, there’s a there’s a little bit of a concern that maybe he can’t get that juice back. But even if even if he doesn’t, he was still a good receiver. Um but you would probably crank this group of weapons down a little bit. Um if Pitman is what he was last year as opposed to kind of the previous few seasons. Uh assuming Tyler Warren doesn’t become a monster here and kind of fill those shoes as their go-to target. Um, that would be another way for them to maybe sustain this ranking or climb above it if Pitman takes a step back. So, there’s other outlets uh for them to still be really good here if Pitman’s back is an issue. Um, but let’s transition to the next piece here into the slot with Josh DS. Love me some Josh DS. Still can’t believe they got him in the third round of the draft. Um, I had him as kind of a top 40, top 50 talent. just a tremendously high floor player and it was really fun to see them fully tap into his skill set last year. Ends up leading the team in receptions despite missing three games. Um probably would have gotten to a thousand yards had he played all three. It would have been it would have been close. But just doing everything you knew he was capable of. Uh just dotting guys up from the slot. He’s just hyper quickfooted uh technically sound route runner. He’s shifty after the catch. Good, not great juice to kind of pull away after the catch, but he can certainly give you explosive plays um either turning up field after the catch or on like crossing routes or running slot fades. Like he can give you a little bit of explosive play, vertical threat ability. He What’s What’s craziest about Josh Downs, though, is the dude he catches everything. Hardly ever dropped the ball at North Carolina. um despite being a smaller guy, he had a 2.9 drop uh percent drop rate in his in his rookie season. Last year it came up a little bit to 5%. He had four drops last year on 102 targets. Still pretty good. Um but reason to believe that can regress back to the mean. Um but it’s not just that. Like for a tiny receiver at 5’9, 175 pounds, he’s a 46% contested catch rate. He’s got a little bit of that kind of Tyler Lockitesque ability to sort his way through traffic and come down with tough catches. So, I love Josh Downs. I I don’t necessarily put the up arrow on him. It’s possible that he could kind of really um just get funneled targets and kind of just for the sake of this series like get that bluecoated stud tier. That’s possible. But for the most part, I view him as just a premium one of three slot starter who we know exactly what you’re getting from him. And his skill set is such a nice compliment with Michael Pitman where yes, they both are at their best in the short to intermediate game, but they they win in such different ways and they still complement each other very very well. And they can both, by the way, line up in the slot a lot of the times because they’ll run 3×1 formations and put like Tyler Warren as that isolated tight end on the one one wide receiver side, something the Chiefs do all the time uh with like Travis Kelce and then you can still have Pitman and DS in the slot. or hell, they could even um if they really wanted to take the tight end off the field, run a four wide receiver set uh with Mitchell and Pierce on the outside and Pitman and DS in the slot and then of course Pitman uh plays most of his snaps on the outside anyway. So, there’s so many different ways to use these guys. They play off each other so so well. Um and then honestly, their number three and number four wide receivers set up really nicely here too. Alec Pierce, he quietly led this team in receiving yards last year because he is so explosive. He has established himself as one of the premium deep threats in the entire NFL. Ends up with 824 yards on just 37 receptions. That is 22.3 yards per reception, which led the NFL. The only three players in the league above 20 yards per reception were Alec Pierce, Marquez Valdez Gantling, and Christian Watson. So, very much in that mold of that designated deep threat guy. Is he one-dimensional? Yes, absolutely. But does Shane Stiken know how to scheme him open in the right times and tap into his long striding speed where he just pulls away and has pretty good ball tracking ability? you know, you’re going to get some drops when you’re used this way, but just three drops on 66 targets. And he actually wins some tough catches, too. He had a 48% contested catch win rate last year. That’s very good relative to like a Marquez Valdis Scantling, for example. So, he’s got a great role within this offense. I I do think he takes a step back this year, though, because I expect Daniel Jones to be the starter. We’ve seen with Anthony Richardson, he will send it and Alec Pierce will go get it. So, if Richardson ends up out there like Alec Pierce crank his numbers back up, but um going to be much more of a decoy, they’ll still try to get the ball his way occasionally with Daniel Jones just to keep defenses honest, but can he fully get it out there? Not in the same way Anthony Richardson can, certainly. And even in the same way that Joe Flacco was able to last year. Um but we do know it’s in there. Deep threats like this are very dependent on the QB play in general. Um but he’s heading into a contract year. He’s going to be an interesting piece to monitor um for a couple reasons. First of which being if Daniel Jones is the starter, he’s not really going to produce here. Um but you know, coming up on that contract year in an interesting season to say the least for the Colts here and they have Adnai Mitchell who they spent a second round pick on last year. Maybe the Colts get some phone calls about Alec Pierce and maybe that could be worth it for the Colts. I I don’t know. Um, I still think his role within this offense to take the top off the defense in the right setup is tremendously valuable. That’s where some of those Daniel Jones limitations come in there, though, where you probably wouldn’t get your money’s worth out of Alec Pierce if Daniel Jones was going to be here for any sort of extended period of time. So, you get the point there. Let’s talk about Adai Mitchell as the wide receiver for though. Um he is in some ways like the Anthony Richardson of this team’s wide receiving core. Uh where there’s a route for him to earn playing time and establish some consistency. Tremendous talent. Uh there’s nothing Adnai Mitchell can’t do from a size, speed, overall athletic profile. Um not just the speed but the change of direction, the agility. Uh the sky is the limit for Adnai Mitchell. Physically speaking, I see a an athlete that looks and moves very much like Cidi Lamb does, which is obviously very high praise. Um, but going back to Georgia where he transferred out to Texas where he kind of underperformed based on his physical tools and in his rookie season, it’s again just like Anthony Richardson, it’s frustrating because you see the high-end plays even on the Colts last year. He made some awesome catches. He dotted some dudes up on some freaky routes. Like he has technique in his routes. He can beat press. He’s great after the catch in theory. Um but it just hasn’t all come together. Whether that’s fumbles or drops or not being at the right place at the right time in terms of reading zones or timing routes. There’s just always been a little bit of something missing with him going all the way back to college. He’s only 22 years old, so hopefully that can come out. But until it does, I think you look at Adnai Mitchell as a high upside wide receiver four that you rotate in. Any wide receiver four is going to get his playing time, but he’s probably going to rotate in more than other wide receiver fours because you want to give him those opportunities. And then for now, when he’s in there, it’s like we’ll see what we can get. You might get a dynamic play from him. You might get a frustrating drivekilling mistake. Um hopefully you can get much more of the former and then start to talk about him as more of an established starter and maybe even someday he could be that 1A that would perfectly round out this group with Pitman as your 1B and Downs in the slot and Warren. Like if that all comes together, holy hell, this could be one of the best groups of weapons in the league. There’s a lot of upside there in Mitchell, but he’s he’s pretty far away from reaching that with any form of consistency at this point in time, but should be fun to see him this year nonetheless. And then you got some good role players. You got Ashton Douan, who is another deep threat. You know, not going to get out there too much because Pierce is so good at it. Mitchell does have the speed to run a lot of those routes as well. Um, but Dulan has been an efficient deep threat for this team. That’s kind of what his role is. He can do some kick returning stuff, too. And then Anthony Gold is a perfect Josh Downs backup um as that kind of shifty gadget slot. I imagine they’ll go with those six. DJ Montgomery, I believe, played some snaps for this team in 2023. Laquan Treadwell is Laquan Treadwell, but he is a tremendous blocker at this stage in his career. So maybe they keep him as a kind of Zack Pascal wide receiver seven role. Pascal was with Stiken in Philadelphia um as one of the best blocking specialists at wide receiver in the league. So, just a little bit of a call back there, but that’s really your wide receiver group. And then what’s crazy is we haven’t even talked about Tyler Warren, who I think most people watching this are pretty familiar with him coming fresh off the heels of the draft process. But yeah, Warren was just straight up one of the best players in this draft. But it became a question of like where do you draft a tight end? And a tight end that is um I I would say better in some areas than others. Like he he is full size. He’s a great athlete, but he did have most of his targets kind of schemed up off of play action at at Penn State. I think his routes show a lot of flashes, but there’s room to improve his routes uh on a downto- getting open against one to one coverage perspective, whether that’s man or zone match. I think even some of the route IQ stuff that you look for tight ends in terms of finding holes in zones and all that stuff like he was kind of a a one-year breakout at Penn State and there was there was just some um some areas to improve in terms of his ability to separate at the position. Also for a full-size tight end, he’s just not the best blocker right now. Now, when he would get to be a lead blocker or go out as a slot wide receiver, which in a lot of two by two formations, he’s going to do a ton of that. He he will demolish you if you’re a slot corner or a safety. Um but putting his hand in the dirt, being an inline blocker, he he needs some development there as so many young tight ends do, but he has the upside the size strength mentality approach to get better in that in that department. Um but just exceptional after the catch, exceptional contested catch ability, great ball skills. He just overall is well like some players more than others, they just kind of inspire a vote of confidence. I don’t want to say he passes the vibes test. Um but I do think he he just he just feels like an excellent football player that’s only going to get better and when the ball’s in his area or when he has the ball in his hands, he’s dominant. Everything else you can kind of clean up and build his game around. So there’s a ton of excitement for him. There’s a absolute world where he has something close to the Brock Bowers type of season last year. They’re different prospects, but they do do some similarities with how they’re going to get used in this offense off of RPOS’s. A lot of a lot of just kind of quick outs and slants and running up the seam off of play action. There’s going to be a lot of that and he could be a real real problem. I think a best case scenario for him is something like we see in George KD in San Francisco and that’s why he was so highly perceived. He’s got a long way to go, especially as a blocker to get to that George KD level, but a really fun draft pick. They weren’t sure if he was going to get to him at 15 and he did. Uh, so a lot of excitement with him coming in here. And then you got Jonathan Taylor. I’m not going to spend too much time on him as a receiving threat. He doesn’t get too much work in the receiving game uh in this version of the offense. Back in the Frank Reich offenses, he showed a little bit more there. Um but it’s it’s just for one reason or another not a huge part of their progressions and how they um design the offense and they have all these other short short game targets to get the ball to. But he can still do it. He had a bunch of drops last year. 14% drop rate on 30 targets. That’s about double what his career was. So that should come back to earth. But um he’s there. You don’t want him to get loose on a screen or you know you can throw the ball to him on a dump down and he can make a guy miss and do some stuff there too. So, uh, better to have him than not, right? There’s still some depth to talk about in terms of the tight end depth and the running back depth. We’ll go pretty quickly here. Moi Cox basically here to block at this point at at this stage in his career. Can still come down with a tough catch in the red zone. Uh, Drew Ogleree, underrated player. I I like what Drew Ogleree does. He’s going to be in there for a lot of 12 personnel goal line. He’s a nasty blocker. Um, he he he blocks like every snap is his last. He’s got a lot of size. Galani Woods is still here. We’ll see what his health situ situation is. Like it kind of feels like they’ve written him off. A guy that just, you know, just doesn’t feels like feel like he can stay on the field. But showed a lot of exciting flashes early in his career when he was available. Kind of a freaky 6’7, 260lb dude that runs a four five. A lot of potential there if if he could ever stay healthy. Will Mallerie, kind of that undersized receiving style player that’s probably going to be pretty much rendered useless with Tyler Warren in here. And they even have Albert O. Albert Aqubenom, another physically talented guy that hasn’t uh reached his upside in the league. And then not too much to talk about with the receiving backs. Khalil Herbert has struggled to grasp all of the um different asks of being a receiving back in his time in the NFL and going back to college. DJ Giddens has some potential there. didn’t do it a ton at Kansas State. Tyler Goodson has some potential, but he’s had some drops and he’s in a an abysmal pass blocker to say the least. Um, so yeah, just not a ton to say with the RB depth. It’s it’s just not as prominent. Um, throwing the ball to the running back is not as prominent with this team as maybe some others, but obviously a really good really fun, deep, talented group of weapons. Probably a group here that uh contributes to me being a bit higher on this Colts team. And and goodness, man, the upside with this group. If Pitman can get and stay healthy, Warren reaches his upside, and if Adai Mitchell can can kind of lock in, oh man, that’s pretty crazy. Pretty unlikely all three of those things happen. But you’re telling me there’s a chance? Yeah. Uh but let’s let’s transition to the back field here and shift the conversation back towards the run game a little bit more. Obviously a very highly ranking group here as well with Jonathan Taylor still very much a top 10 running back. Had another big season last year,400 yards, 11 touchdowns. Um, now we love Jonathan Taylor. I’m a big fan of JT. But to be fair, the miss tackle force rate was actually eyeopeningly low. He was at just 4.7 yards per attempt. He did get 303 carries as they funneled this run game through him. Um, so it, you know, his his rushing yards are impressive, but the volume of carries certainly helps attribute to that. And he did also kind of revert to having some fumbling issues, which he had back in college. Four fumbles this year after he had kind of cleaned that up for the most part in his time. One of which came on a brain deadad decision of of all players. The team leader Jonathan Taylor, just like an elite character guy, very like attention to detail oriented player in a in the game of the year against the Broncos where they were set up to win that game. He does the whole like drops the ball short of the goal line on one of his breakaway runs and that completely flipped the game into them losing that game. So, like there was there was some I don’t want to say drawbacks, but there was things to be critical of JT last year, but overall, you’re still talking about a back with some of the best vision in the league. He’s got that perfect blend of knowing when to hit a hole or when to kind of let block set up and when to show patience. He has still good shiftiness for 225 lb back to stop and start and change lanes. He’s got great power. He still has the long speed to hit breakaway runs. Um there’s just so much to like about Jonathan Taylor. Definitely um not in that top tier of running back, but still someone I consider a superstar. Kind of top six to 10 running back in the league. And obviously a heavy contributor towards, as we’ll see, this being one of the better overall run games in the league, but this backfield ranking seventh to eighth in the NFL with a B+ grade there. Um, and then another thing I like about this Colts team this year that I think is like kind of sneaky important is they have better running back depth. That has low-key been a massive issue for this Colts team the last two years outside of an early season stretch in 2023 when Zack Moss played pretty well. Um, but he kind of fell off after that that little stretch. It’s been Tyler Goodson, Trey Surman, and that’s led to them really having to lean into Jonathan Taylor more than you probably should. Like, you don’t want to give your running back 300 carries like the Colts did last year, especially for a Jonathan Taylor that has already seen over 2,000 career carries going back to his time at Wisconsin. I do think you want to be able to find a little bit more balance there. Um, you want to give JT your most critical important carries for sure, but you want another guy that can reduce that workload so that JT has more long-term durability, but also like JT has missed time as is going to happen when you’re running a guy into the ground like this at this position. So, I think it it does it it keeps JT fresher, healthier, to be more explosive, more efficient, allows you to get a little bit more juice out of that contract that they gave him. And then when you do take him off the field, they just have guys that are going to be able to contribute to the run game much better. So Khalil Herbert is nothing special, but he’s been an efficient runner outside of in Cincinnati last year where their run blocking is it’s pretty tough, man. I know Chase Brown had a good amount of success last year. Very different style of back in Cincinnati, but the types of carries Khalil Herbert was getting there was like third and two, third and three when everybody knows you’re running the ball. They couldn’t block in those situations. The Colts are going to be much better in that regard. You go back to Herbert in Chicago, he was a very good backup running back. He’s got um shiftiness. He’s got juice. He’s a legit RB2 for the Colts to have. I like that signing. And then they draft DJ Giddens here in the fifth round. To me, Giddens was a a third or fourth round talent that I understood why he fell to the fifth because this RB class was so deep. But I like I totally agree with them tapping into the depth of this running back class and getting a guy like Giddon. So, I absolutely think projects as an RB2 in the NFL. Very balanced player. He’s got pretty good speed. That’s probably his best trait. But like overall size, shiftiness, vision, power, it was all just kind of above average for a college prospect, which is what kind of led me to having him as someone that like is going to have a harder time than others standing out as a, you know, starting running back in the league, but as the perfect compliment to Jonathan Taylor. Can he emerge in that role on his rookie contract? Uh, ironically, my pro comp on DJ Giddens was Marlon Mack. So, think of Marlon Mack in his prime for this Colts team. He would be the perfect RB2 next to a Jonathan Taylor. So, I like the RB depth much better this year as well. I mean, Goodson and Trey Surman just don’t have the skills at the RB position that guys like Giddens and Herbert do. Um, Goodson is still here. He’s got some juice. I don’t know how much we see of him this year, if he even makes the team along with Savon Omid. They do have some kind of home run hitters in this back field between Goodson, Okmmed, and Herbert. all have some pretty enticing breakaway ability. But yeah, I mean obviously another really good group for this offense. And then I feel like we’ve kind of hit on the QB run multiplier to this point in the video, but it is obviously a huge part of what they do with Daniel Jones expected to be the starter from me. They get a B-grade ranking seventh to uh 10th for the QB run multiplier. And again, they’d be like top five and the run game sees an even larger boost if it’s going to be Anthony Richardson, even if you’re going to have maybe some less consistency as a passer from him if he can stay healthy. We don’t need to go down that path again, but it is a part of this team that does play a role. Let’s get to the last group of the offense with the offensive line. and they’ve created some question marks here with those veterans leaving, but this is still a very good unit that if things go right with their two young starters drafted last year at center and right guard, ultimately this should get right back to being a top five offensive line. But with those questions on those two, they do for now rank ninth for offensive line, 11th to 12th for pass blocking with a B minus grade. maybe a few more questions from a pass blocking perspective than with the run blocking where they do rank fourth for me overall with a B+ grade. Um, so at left tackle you have Bernard Raymond who should be getting a contract extension, a massive contract extension very very soon. Probably in the range of 25 plus million dollars. He just has established himself as an awesome franchise borderline top 10 left tackle in the NFL. He’s not the biggest guy. He doesn’t have the best arm length, but he is tremendously athletic. Uh does everything he does at a very high level and at a technically sound level. With that athleticism, they’re able to weaponize him as a tosser uh or or sorry on running back tosses as a puller. Uh in the screen game, he’s really good as that kind of lead blocker for sure. Um but he can block any sort of run scheme. Again, as a pass blocker, nothing he can’t really do, man. There there’s occasionally times where his length and his size will hurt his anchor, and that’s probably where you’re going to see his losses come more often than not. Um, but those losses are really starting to show up uh fewer and further in between than especially his rookie season where it took him a little bit of time to get to this level. Um, but yeah, he’s just he’s just a rock man and is going to earn every single penny that they pay him. But then at left guard, big Q, Quentyn Nelson, I think absolutely in in what right now is kind of an interesting debate for who the best guard in the NFL actually is. It’s very close for me. I’m not going to end up giving a final answer on that. Basically, I I think Chris Lindstöm is the best run blocking guard in the NFL, but he has he he’s kind of just a good, not great pass blocker. You have Joe Tuni who’s probably the best pass blocking guard in the NFL, but he’s again like a good, not great run blocker. And then Quent Nelson. He’s not the pass blocker of Joe Tuni. He does take his losses more than you frankly might think for how we’ve always discussed Quent Nelson, but he’s settled back in and is like top five in that area. And as a run blocker, he’s not quite the athlete and doesn’t have quite the level of run blocking of like a Chris Lindström. Um, but he’s a better pass blocker than Chris Lindstöm. So, you guys can take that for what it is. But I think Quentyn Nelson’s balance absolutely puts him in that discussion. He’s tremendous. He’s the best player on this offensive line. He’s a leader of the team. He he kind of sets the tone up front. Uh, just I love Quint Nelson. So, um, he’s a big contributor to this being a top 10 offensive line. Uh, even if you do have some questions here next to him at center and then next to that at right guard. Reason for optimism with both of these guys, Tanner Bordellini and Matt Gun Calves, but we just got to see more. I mean, Tanner Bordellini stepped in and played really well at center. He’s a fun player because he’s just like a sawoff shotgun of a center. He’s got short arms. He’s undersized, but he is crazy athletic and he is vicious in the trenches. even if it doesn’t always look perfect with him because he he kind of has to scratch and claw for positioning and you know his lack of size can lead to him being overwhelmed at times. You’re still probably going to end up with a pretty effective if not a little bit inconsistent guy there because he just tries so hard and is so athletic and wants it more than pretty much anybody else. So he’s he’s kind of a fun player to keep an eye on this year. I I don’t think he’ll ever be a great center. Maybe someday they are looking for u more of a long-term kind of Ryan Kelly type of 10-year starter type here. But if all these other guys are what they can be, you can be just fine with a scrappy, somewhat inconsistent center in Tanner Bordellini. And that’s kind of what I expect from him. Not really worried about him. You just do want to either have him double teaming with Matt Guncalves or make sure Quinton Nelson is there to help if he does get one-on-one looks. Um, but I do believe in Bordellini. Matt Gun Calves at right guard as well. I I do just kind of generally trust the Colts with this offensive line. They’ve done such a good job with these guys. They certainly have earned some benefit of the doubt and they really like Gun Calves. I hadn’t even watched him when they drafted him in the third round. Um, and that’s my fault obviously. Uh, but he got out there in his rookie season where I obviously did get to watch him and he played pretty well at right tackle as Braden Smith missed some time especially as a run blocker and I could totally see how that skill set could translate into guard. He’s a people mover. He has that mentality you look for and I think his limitations as a pass blocker came with some of his lack of range and overall high-end athletic profile. technically speaking at guard that could be even better. So, I do think there’s a lot of potential for Gun Calves actually to just become the next really good tackle that slid inside to guard and and played really well. He’s going to have to prove that he can do it at this position. It’s not a seamless transition for everybody, but there’s a lot of reason to believe in him um and believe in the Colts that they can get this thing right. Um, but there’s a chance that these two guys aren’t what they need them to be. And in which case, um, you’re going to you’re going to have some weak links on the offensive line that certain smart teams with enough depth on their defensive line can kind of isolate these guys and, uh, really start to heat up your your quarterback, especially as pass blockers. I feel even more confident in these two guys as run blockers based on what we saw from them last season. But the nice thing, too, is because of how they designed this offense, the ball’s out quickly, and it’s based around the run game anyway. So, I get what they’re going with with these two guys. And again, if all goes well, we still got to talk about Braden Smith, but if all goes well, this group very well, uh dare I say even very easily can get back into the the kind of top five, even top three conversation for who the best offensive lines in the NFL are. Um, and that has rounded out by having Braden Smith at right tackle. Now, I’ll be honest, for those following the series closely, uh the Panthers actually were ranked ninth when we did them. Watching the Colts, I feel a little bit worse about Braden Smith as I did maybe a year or two years ago. He started to miss a lot of time. I’m not quite ready to say he’s injuryprone. One more year of it. And I think you would see that red medical cross on his name, but he did still play 10 games last year and finished. He was able to get back and finish the season. I I don’t think there’s heavy reason to believe he’s going to get hurt again, but that’s something to stash in the back of your mind. But he is also a guy that like isn’t necessarily this lock down pass protector. You do see him lose. He was a guard in college. He’s a he’s a good athlete, but the length and the range and the reach um he works around it to the best of his abilities, but he’s he’s very much kind of stalled out as just a good pass protecting right tackle. And you do see him give up some pressures certainly. So, I’m not going to say I’m worried about him necessarily, but he is also heading into a contract year. He turns 30 years old after this season. Just some stuff to keep an eye on there. Overall, I don’t want to keep that conversation negative uh negative, but there there were just a couple holdups as I got to this Colts deep dive kind of prepping things uh as it related to to Braden Smith. But you’re still ultimately talking about roughly a top 10 right tackle and one of the best run blocking right tackles in the league who again is very stable as a pass protector even with some of those deficiencies. But there’s your your starters now. Their depth is quite poor. They are very much banking on their draft and developability. They’ve got a couple of other recent draft picks along with some other names that have really been around here for a few years at this point. Um, so a tackle Blake Freeland heading into year three, I’ve just never been a Blake Freeland guy. I don’t think he has the right body makeup to play tackle. Short arms and tall and a poor anchor are just not the right combination. Not just in terms of pass protection, but he struggles to kind of find the right leverage in the run game. So, he’s played a little bit. would probably be the first guy in. That’s not good news for the Colts, but we’ll see what Jaylen Travis can look like. He is fascinating. Jaylen Travis is a true true freak. I mean, if things go well with Jaylen Travis, they believe in him obviously being a fourth round pick. I mean I mean just like this is a builtin a lab type of athlete, 68, 340 moves pretty well for a guy that size. Um if things go well, we might see Braden Smith become a free agent and then go to Jaylen Travis. That’s a best case scenario. His tape was very up and down at Iowa State. They got to get him in front of NFL offensive line coaches. And a good one here in Tony Spirano Jr. uh who’s been here for the last three years. Um and and get that technique cleaned up. But definitely something to like keep an eye on down the road. But probably year one wouldn’t be the guy that you want to step in. Um and you just would prefer to have more of a true swing tackle. That term gets used all the time for a reason. The odds of either Braden Smith or Bernard Raymond missing some time are pretty high. Now, Matt Galves could step back out and play tackle in that pinch as he did last year. Um, I do think they like him as a long-term guard, but you could do that and then maybe you’re sliding either Pinter or Daltton Tucker who played like nine games last year. Daltton Tucker really struggled last year. Um, again, Will Fry missed the second three quarters of the season last year. He only played 25% of their snaps. So, a lot of these guys have played. Daltton Tucker being the guy that stepped in last year. And again, it was just tough to watch. Like, he he’s not in really in the mix for that right guard spot for a reason at this point. But Danny Pinter is is still in the mix here. He’s he’s played as well. And we had some interesting conversations about him with Zach as well where maybe he pushes Tanner Bordellini for the starting center job, but probably not. But he’s probably the only depth that you feel like okay about Wesley French. You would be banking on some what year three, year four development from him that hasn’t come yet. And then it’s all kind of undrafted types after that. So the depth is not great. You got to keep this group healthy. But as long as those two questions at center and right guard can be okay, this should be a great offensive line that again comes together with an offense that has everything. I like the coaching. I like the weapons. I like the backfield. I like the offensive line. Just the quarterback, right? But can Daniel Jones, you know, play point guard or or maybe can Anthony Richardson do some stuff with this unit that we haven’t even seen yet before? Absolutely. Absolutely. So, I have them ranked as the 21st overall offense. Just kind of a nice balanced floor with this unit. I don’t know that they’ll go too much higher than that. Again, other teams certainly have more upside. Um, and from a pass game perspective, they are much more limited. When you have a Daniel Jones as your QB, they rank 27th for overall passing game. Um, but the run game ranks sixth, man. Like, you’re a top six, seven run game. Your offense is going to have a really nice floor, especially when your passing game piggybacks off of that so damn well with as many weapons as this team has. So, that is stage one of me trying to convince you that this Colts team isn’t necessarily going to suck. Let’s talk about this defense where there’s some talent on this side of the ball, too. Uh that starts with the defensive line. It’s a good defensive line, not a great defensive line, but they come in just sniffing the top 20. They ran 20th to 21st for overall defensive line with a B minus grade there. Pass rush a little bit lower than that. 23rd to 25th. So you got some questions with the pass rush, but the run defense is excellent. Sixth to 11th in the league with a Bgrade. Let’s start with the edge group where the Colts don’t necessarily have a number one, but they might have five number two defensive ends. Like this is a crazy deep group. If nothing else, this group is going to be allowed to rotate and play fresh. Um, but let’s start with Latulu because he’s the one guy here that you’re really hoping could be a number one. But coming out, I certainly had very high expectations for Liatulu. I know Chris Ballard did. saw him joking in that video. He’s like, “We got the best effing pass rusher in the draft.” Okay, well, he didn’t get the best pass rusher in the draft. That was obviously Jared Verse, uh, who was unbelievable, but even if he got overshadowed by Jared Verse and what he did as a rookie, it doesn’t mean he had a bad rookie season. I I do think viewers of this channel would say he disappointed because I’ll admit I was like crazy high and lot myself just like Chris Ballard was obviously I did have him as the best edge rusher in in the draft um a little bit ahead of Jared Verse still like Verse but would have done what the Colts did as well and I would have drafted Lu ahead of Verse and I would have been wrong to do that um but I I will say this so Lu’s skill set did translate. Number one, he was really good against the run for a rookie. Uh, and then how he won in college with really the cross chop and his counter moves off of the cross chop basically all surrounding his swipes and his hand usage. And I talked a lot about his speed to counter. I think I stole that term from Trevor Sikma in a podcast that he had about Lu, but great point, Trevor. His his reaction time to realize, all right, the cross chop isn’t there. I gotta get to my next move. Like the secondary counter moves are absolutely there with Lu. And that’s kind of what we saw him winning against NFL competition was mostly the cross chop and then some swipes and counters off of that. But it certainly took a dip in efficiency. Whereas he was like one of the all-time efficient one-on-one pass rush winners based on PFF charting data that they’ve ever had against college competition. Getting to the NFL where they know he’s going to go to that cross chop. NFL tackles were just much better at taking that away. And now it is up to Liatu Latu to find another way to win early. He’s always going to have the cross chop. He’s always going to have those counters, but I think especially if he can’t develop more of a bull rush or another move, whether it’s an inside spin or a rip move, whatever it might be, where the tackle sets for the cross chop or is prepared for the cross chop and he gives them something else and wins early. until there’s something else to win early as a rusher, he’s probably going to be closer to what he was as a rookie, which was like very much a solid mid-ranging number two edge rusher. Like 28 basically, he had, for example, he was 42nd in pass rush win rate among edge rushers. So, if the top 32 are number ones, the next 32 are number TWs. 42 puts him like smack dab mid-range, number two for pass rushers win rate. He ends up with 38 pressures, not playing all of the snaps. He actually was third in snaps behind Pay and uh Dio for edge pressures for them last year. So, the snap count should come up theoretically with a full workload. you’re talking about a 40 pressure, you know, a 45 pressure, five, six sack type of guy. Yeah, it’s a it’s a good number two. And the fact that he defends the run is nice on top of that as well. But Colts don’t want him to be a number two. There was obviously much more hope that he can be another level up from what they’ve had in Quiddipe and Dota Odingbo and on a low end like Taekquin Lewis, Samson Ibukam, like these are all nice players. They want that difference maker. this defense and this defensive line has just hovered around this just being a pretty nice group for so long now. They were hoping Lu was going to change that and we’ll see if he can get there. There could be another evolution in his game. He’s still a very young player. Um but going back to college now, he really has a specific way that he likes to win as a rusher. And again, just got to just got to find another answer, another way to win. and then we can really be in business wii with Lu as more of a number one caliber edge rusher. So with that, he’s going to be kind of the biggest sort of wild card for this defensive line that could elevate this from their current ranking, but also not necessarily a full-on wild card because at least his floor is pretty nice. If he is what he was as a rookie, you’re still fine with that. It’s just not quite what they were hoping he could be with with where they drafted him. But then the rest of these guys are those real kind of rotational number two types. Quitty Payey, like I’m kind of exhausted just talking about Quiddyp Pay at this point. He feels like he’s been the same player going back to Michigan. Uh high effort run defender, really quickfooted, like high agility type of athlete, but doesn’t really have the speed to win that corner. Doesn’t quite win with the bull rush enough to be a good power rusher. doesn’t have a high enough uh degree of like pass rush moves to consistently win as a rusher. He’s basically all effort and swipes and cleanup sacks and not really a guy I want on the field on third down at this point. Honestly, still a useful member of a rotation. Definitely someone that has not lived up to his draft pedigree, but what he gives you on early downs and his effort is still useful. But then after Quiddyp Pay, we got to talk about Samson Ibuka. I mean, for him, 30 years old now, coming off of what was a devastating preseason Achilles tear. He missed all of last season, he is, I think, the biggest wild card for this defense and probably the biggest wild card for this entire team outside of that quarterback room. coming off a career year in 2023 for this Colts team. I mean, if we’re talking about Lu needs to be closer to a number one edge rusher for this Dline to all come together, Ibukam was damn close to being that type of guy in 2023 before that Achilles tear. I mean, kind of right on that border if you’re looking for him to be okay, the 32nd best edge rusher in the league. Very close. like he was 28th in pass rush win rate, but okay, 40th in pressures, 40th as well in in total PFF pass rushing grade. I think the tape would tell you he’s probably a little bit short of a true number one. He also finished 25th in sacks. So, like you get the point. He’s a really good football player and was in 2023. And if he just gets back to what he was that year and you drop him in next to Lu where those guys are just kind of like solid number TWS. We’re going to talk about the interior duo, but you feel really good about that duo with Stewart and Buckner. Your defensive line is cooking with gas. And that’s before we talk about any potential development for Latu Lu based on what he did last year. So it’s a big deal. And and it’s a big deal because then Quiddyp Pay slides down to what in my opinion is his natural role as just a higheffort quick twitch number three edge rusher. So like all all tides are lifted if IM can get back and stay healthy. But it’s just got to be a huge question mark for a 30-year-old edge rusher whose game is predicated on leverage. He’s like 6’2, 250 lbs. He’s like low to the earth. He’s twitched up very much dependent on that lower body explosiveness and the and the ankle bend specifically. So it it doesn’t feel likely that he’s going to be full go full himself, but it’s maybe possible. I mean, Modern Medicine is incredible and it’s not like he’s got some crazy track record of injuries before that. But needless to say, a true wild card in the sense of we just don’t really know what we’re going to get from this player right here. And he’s a he’s a big swing factor at his best for this defense. After him though, they draft JT to him low. I don’t think that’s necessarily a sign that they’re um you know, pessimistic that I can get back, but with pay in a contract year, I come off the injury um definitely a hedge against it. uh and tumalo very high floor piece for this defensive line. I would definitely bet against him becoming a full-time starter uh as an ideal kind of number one type of edge rusher that we keep talking about this Dline looking for. Um but a just tenacious run defender, great play strength, especially against the run, but just not a lot of twitch as a pass rusher. Doesn’t threaten the corner as a rusher. And I think NFL tackles are going to find it relatively easy slowing down to him a little. Most of his pressures and sacks came later in the rep where he’s winning with effort and counter moves um and pursuit. That can still be there at the NFL level, but that’s not really going to bring much of a fear factor to the defense. But as a second round pick, I was fine with it. There was a couple other edge rushers I think have more upside than JT, but I I get it. You think Lu gives you some of that upside. They’re looking into the future a little bit more and a little bit more worried about the future depth of this team. So, I understand the pick. It’s not the most exciting thing in the world, but he will be a solid player, a very high floor second round prospect. Um, and then they still have Taekquin Lewis as well, another Ohio State product. Big lengthy edge guy. he can step inside as well and give you a little bit more pocket pushing ability as a four eye if they want to take Grover Stewart off the field as well. Um so that’s maybe his biggest impact frankly at this stage. Uh he’s he’s had a harder time, you know, staying healthy and and establishing a lot of playing time inside any given season, but still a useful piece to have in there as depth. I still like Taekquin Lewis and if they didn’t have so many guys ahead of him, I’ I’d maybe be even more excited about him. But at this stage, we’re also probably done predicting Taekquin Lewis to take another step forward from just being a nice solid edge three type, but he gets to be kind of their edge 4.5 given the depth they have with this group. So the depth is insane obviously, but can any of these guys give you closer to number one edge production? That’s the hope between Lu and Ibukham probably. Unless some miracle growth season from Quiddyp Pay. um Lu and Iukum would probably be your best path towards that possible. We’ll see. But then you go to the interior and this is unlike any interior group we’ve talked about in the sense that there is no depth here at all. And I don’t get it, man. It was like this last year as well and and I think even the year before that. I I don’t get why they don’t really value having a rotation of guys to keep Stewart and Buckner now on the wrong side of 30 fresh and healthy. Both Buckner and Stewart have missed some time. Granted, Stewart was for a suspension, but he is getting up there in age, and Buckner is um dealt with some stuff on and off the last couple of years. So, when one of these guys isn’t there, the drop off from this defense has been eye opening. So, I’m I’m very surprised they didn’t spend a little bit of money, make a trade, like even like what the, for example, what the Saints did to go get a Devon Godshaw for a future seventh round pick. Like just something like that to give you one other guy here that can step in and do some dirty work. It’s crazy that they don’t have that guy. And if they did, this would be a top five Dline for run defense, frankly, because you got a bunch of edge rushers that can do it. Grover Stewart is still one of the best rundefending nose tackles in the entire league. Full stop. And Buckner as a three technique, as a complement to Stewart, is a really good run defender, too. But that lack of depth does drop them down a tier for the overall run defense. Um, but with that out of the way, we we should spend at least a little bit more time on Stewart and Buckner. Don’t need to hang on this forever because I think we’re pretty familiar with what these guys can do. But, uh, Buckner is absolutely still to me, even at 31 years old, in that group of defensive tackles with maybe like Jeffrey Simmons, Quinnon Williams last year, not so much 2023 Quinnon Williams, who was a defensive player of the year candidate, but there’s this crop of like defensive tackles that are amazing players, can be your number one. you probably wish you had more of an alpha compliment to him, whether it was on the edge or another interior guy so that they don’t draw so much attention and deal with so many double teams, but they work their way through it and still make a tremendous impact on your pass rush. That’s kind of where DeForest Buckner is. He’s short of the Chris Jones tier, but still a game-wrecking, disruptive force. And at the end of the day, someone that, you know, opposing offensive lines are going to focus on, especially when you don’t have that other number one piece that we keep talking about. But that’s why it’s so important, you know, Buckner’s getting all this attention. It’s why it’s so important to have another guy that can win with the efficiency of the game’s best pass rushers. And they don’t have that guy. That’s why they end up with a C++ grade in pass rush and this unit still leaves a little bit to be desired. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad group, but that’s absolutely what they’re missing and have been missing for so long since they went to get to Forest Buckner to be a defensive line that teams are actually afraid of because it is pretty simple to just double team Deorest Buckner. He just as anybody not named Aaron Donald basically is going to have a hard time getting through double teams and force someone else to beat you. And any smart team is going to take that approach. But with the right schemer and a little bit more blitzing here, maybe you rush five, all of a sudden that center’s got to pick up the linebacker and hey, Deorest Buckner’s got a one-on-one on your guard. And good freaking luck with that. So Buckner’s an awesome player. Kind of saving this team’s Dline grade in many ways. Did deal with an injury last year. It’s not something I’m really worried about. He’s still been just as efficient for the most part in the last two years. I don’t see much regression from him. Just, yeah, he only had 35 pressures and seven sacks because he only played twothirds of the season last year, but still on pace for that kind of 55 pressure, double- digit d sack type of production, which is right in line with your Jeffrey Simmons, what Quinnon did last year. Again, that type of guy. And then Grover Stewart is entirely one-dimensional, right? Like sometimes he’ll get a one-on-one against a smaller interior lineman and get you a little bit of push in the pocket, but you know, probably 15 16 pressures on the season like once a game basically. Not an impact as a rusher. But in run defense, yeah, he can eat double teams, split them at times. He’s he’s unique because he’s not 340 pounds. He’s like a good 320 and he carries the the weight really well. He’s got awesome play strength, but he he’s got a little bit of quickness to him to slip off blocks and make make plays as a run defender. So, it’s like Dexter Lawrence is Dexter Lawrence. And then you have this next crop of nose tackles with like Stewart, Vivea. Granted, Vea does more as a rusher. Like maybe that’s where Tavandre Sweat is at, but like there’s just not a ton of guys that are as big of an impact on the run defense as Grover Stewart. So, he’s obviously a core reason why this Dline run defense is still roughly around the top 10 there with that 6 to 11th ranking. But like I said, man, where the hell is the depth? Go get somebody. Indianapolis, what are we doing here? Like Neville Gallamore on a veteran minimum deal who’s never developed as an athlete coming out of Oklahoma, undersized, bad football player, can lock into some pressures off his athleticism occasionally. uh Aabore who it’s not looking good for him. I was a huge fan of him. Crazy athlete. Maybe Lu Anarumo can figure him out in a way that Gus Bradley couldn’t. I would love to see that. I still think there’s potential in there, but it’s not something I’m betting on at this point. Right now, he’s just an undersized tweener without a home. They spent a sixth round pick on Tim Smith out of Alabama, who was not a particularly good defensive tackle in college in my opinion. Eric Johnson, who missed last season, I think, or spent the season on the practice squad after a bad year in 2023, uh, coming into the league, and then an undrafted rookie in Devonte Davis. And that’s it. Like, literally, what are we doing, Chris Ballard? Have you not learned from previous seasons? I I This is the most frustrating aspect of this defensive line is rotational depth. Um, I know I’m generally optimistic about this team, but that matters. You can’t just play Grover Stewart and DeForest Buckner a thousand snaps. That’s not how this works. So maybe Lou can get his nose into the front office and say, “Hey, I can you just go get anybody?” It shouldn’t be that hard. But that does round out this defensive line. Uh, again, it’s not the most overly exciting group, but it’s it’s a solid group nonetheless that gives this defense a nice floor up front outside of those, you know, 20% of the time when you got to rotate Steuart or Buckner off the field. But let’s move forward and talk about the linebackers. It’s It’s not a great group of linebackers. I’ll be honest, you’re leaning more towards being concerned about this group than you are excited about it. It’s just entirely going to depend on the development of Jaylen Carly’s in year two of his time in the NFL and year two of him as a linebacker. He was a safety coming out of Missouri, a tremendously athletic and big safety at like 63 230. Ran a four, five flat at that size. Um, and he got in the mix at linebacker last year. It was mostly EJ Speed and Zire Franklin, but they ran some kind of three safety packages and um, you know, Carly’s got some time in there. played 242 snaps. Uh ended up with a beautiful pass deflection week six against Tennessee. Um you know, go to picking up tight ends and running backs. Like the safety background is what you get excited about. He brings a unique coverage perspective to the position. Um and it’s a it’s a move that has worked for various linebackers around the league. And he loved to hit. He was a relatively secure tackler. 10% miss tackle rate. is average for starting linebackers in the league. Like it’s all in there physically speaking. Um but quite clearly was slow in terms of run diagnostics and block take on ability. He just has to learn how to play this position. He’s the ultimate wild card in that sense. And the odds are year two there’s still going to be a lot of, you know, learning moments from him. And he and as fast as he is, he’s gonna have a hard time scraping over an offensive tackle on outside zone or beating a guard’s face on, you know, duo. Like, there’s just so much to do with this position that he is going to have to learn that you’re expecting some frustrating games and some bad moments from him. But the upside is obviously there for him. What they get from him is what they get from this linebacker room basically because we know what Zyra Franklin is. Don’t need to spend too much time on him, but the dude loves to hit. He’s always towards the league in tackles. We’ll see if that continues with a scheme change here. Um, but has done a very good job flying to the ball. He’s got good size and willingness to take on blocks. He makes sure that his presence is felt around the line of scrimmage in a way that not every linebacker does in today’s NFL. So, you do like that about him. He has his drawbacks. He’s a more limited athlete. He’s a little bit of a stiffer athlete, especially in terms of turning and making up ground, having that margin for error in coverage. Uh, and missed tackles, man. He’s been below average in terms of miss tackle rate for the last two, three years. He’s missed over 20 tackles in each of his last three seasons. That’s more than one per game. It’s just not ideal for your number one linebacker. It hasn’t been crippling for him. and obviously he’s been able to rack up a bunch of other tackles. Run defense is ultimately his strength compared to coverage, but those are kind of the drawbacks on him. Very good player. He sets the floor here to the point that you’re not panicked about this linebacker room, but his ceiling isn’t that great. And without really knowing what we’re getting from Jaylon Carly’s, it’s how you end up with the 27th ranked linebacker room. They they come in with a C minus grade for coverage, 25th to 26th and a C-grade for run defense for the linebackers where they’re 25th to 27th. And then the depth, like there’s just not really much to say here. Cameron Mcgone was a good run defender in college like four years ago. Uh we haven’t got a chance to see him in the NFL. Uh Joe Bachi comes over from Cincinnati where he was a special teamer. He’s the one guy where maybe uh he was just stashed behind a linebacker duo of Logan Wilson and Germaine Pratt and just hasn’t really gotten a chance to show what he can do. He follows Luanarumo over. So, he would be the one maybe piece if Carly stinks. Uh Sean Olubi has played a little bit for this team, developmental type. And then Jacob Phillips as well, even though he played a bunch in Cleveland, he would still be considered developmental. He’s a lengthy athletic linebacker that was really hard to watch in Cleveland. Probably won’t make this team. Um but yeah, just really no depth to speak of. It is entirely dependent on what Jalon Carly can do for them, which is inevitably going to make him as well one of those core wildcard highlight players uh for for this team. But let’s go to the secondary. This is the best unit on this defense. I’m a big fan of this group. Uh especially the Chavarius Ward edition and how that kind of allows all these other pieces, all these other pieces to just line up into the right spot. Jaylen Jones, for example, had to be their number one corner last year. Now he gets to be just a true outside number three corner. Um but yeah, I’ve got the Colts ranked inside the top half of the league with a B-grade, ranking 12th to 14th for secondary. And for the most part, not a lot of questions. Um, Shvarius Ward is in some ways a wildcard question mark. I feel very confident internally in his ability to get back. I just think he is a nasty really doit all corner, press man, zone, off zone, like press cover three. Outside of sticking him in the slot, he can do it all. And what did we say about Luumo? He needs a number one corner that can run any given coverage any given week. Like that is a big reason they targeted him to be their number one corner in a way that like like okay Jaylen Jones love what he does. Sam Wulmarmac fun stuff last year. We’ll talk about those guys. They can’t do what Chvarius Ward does. And the fact that they pinpointed him gave him a lot of money. I think three years $51 million a good bit guaranteed. like they are very confident in his ability to have a bounce back from just it was a down straight up wasted season for him last year due to a the tragic loss of his baby girl and I cannot pretend to imagine what he went through and is still going through mentally. Um just I just don’t have words to to describe how how awful that is from a football perspective here. I think a change of scenery, getting focused, getting the money, being a guy that this staff has put so much faith in. There’s no physical reason to believe that Chavarius Ward can’t get back to what we saw in 2023, which was a top 10 quarterback in the NFL. It was a big part of that Ner’s Super Bowl run. Not a guarantee necessarily that he can refine that mojo and that swagger. It’s why he is still a bit of a risk and a wild card for this team. But I definitely lean towards the side of he’s going to be great here and that he can kind of get back to being perceived as a superstar top 8 to 10 corner in the NFL. I’m just obviously big fan of this signing. He’s another factor towards me being a little bit higher on this Colts team because he does just round out this secondary to be so complete. And man, for Luarumo to go from what he was working with in Cincinnati the last couple years to now the balance of this group and even the depth that we’ll get into, it’s it’s exciting. I’m excited to see this defense and we can keep going through these guys. So like Kenny Moore in the slot, we we know what Kenny Moore is, dude. Like he is still one of the smartest, toughest slot corners in the NFL. Never was the fastest guy and is getting older, but can still absolutely play. like we we I don’t have too much to add on Kenny Moore. One of the highest IQ zone defenders in the league. I think this is the type of guy that we might be a year or two away from him making a transition to safety as we’ve seen from some players like him in the past. Who knows if that’s with this team or someone else or if it even happens. But for now, I do still think he can play at slot corner. I I don’t think we’ve seen true regression from him yet, but at some point age is going to come for him. Could that be this season? It could. Um, but I’m still optimistic that he can play and do all of the different stuff that Lanna Rumo is going to ask of him. Lennumo is going to freaking love this guy and he is very much in line with what he was able to get from Mike Hilton in that slot position. So scheme scheme wise, I think I think Kenny Moore can even be a little bit I don’t I guess rejuvenated would be the right word and maybe even be a little better than he was last year. Getting to do a little bit more uh causing a little bit more confusion and and um chaos for the opposing offense from that slot position. Jaylen Jones now as a number three outside kind of playmaking corner. Love that. He just is not the best athlete. So yeah, there’s going to be some times even with this team that I am speaking optimistically about this second. There’s going to be some times where they want to run man-to-man coverage and teams will be able to look Jaylen Jones way and a lot of times he just can’t hang if he’s on the wrong matchup. He does have good reaction time and good technique. It’s not that he’s horrible man-to-man, but it’s not his strength. He is best off zone reading the quarterback’s eyes, understanding route concepts. He has some of the best route squeeze anticipation where he understands what routes are coming and while other corners might be able to close space a little bit quicker than he is, he begins closing that space before most corners would. So, he finds himself in position to disrupt passes. He’s got also excellent hand eye coordination, excellent ball skills. He’s one of the better corners in the NFL at going for that football. So, even if he does get beat two, maybe three times a year, he’s going to be looking for those punch outs and he’s going to be able to convert those punch outs. Some of the old peanut punch in his game, maybe the torch of Darius Leonard doing that here several years ago, getting passed to Jaylen Jones in that sense. Um, so I I just I am a fan of that kind of playmaking number three corner where if you can’t have a perfect trio of shutdown dudes, at least take the guy that’s pretty good in coverage that even when he gets beat can make something out of it and when QBs do make mistakes, he’s definitely going to capitalize on it. So him now as a number three as opposed to last year where he’d be their number one, I love that. Um, and then dude, you got so you got Samuel Wac who had to step outside last year. He’s been a really good pickup for Chris Ballard in this Colts team. He’s not going to have to start, but he can play some dime back if Kenny Moore starts to struggle. You could put Kenny Moore into a different role and maybe play WAC in the slot. They have some flexibility there. WAC could start for some teams in the league, whether it’s as an outside zone forward corner where he was pretty good uh doing a lot of that last year, but just a good flexible defensive back. To have him as your fourth corner now is a luxury. Guju Brent coming back from injury. You know, I don’t know if he can stay healthy, but had a good promising rookie year and then basically we didn’t get to see him in year two. He got hurt in the second game of the season. Uh but I do think back a little bit to how Lou Andorumo used like Trey Flowers. Um maybe I’m misremembering this. Maybe there’s Bengals fans watching that could confirm this, but I’m like 99% sure. Trey Flowers, who was a total non-factor for the Seahawks, but a lengthy physical corner. Lu Anarumo picked him up and used him like one-on-one on tight ends as a dime back and a matchup corner. Just a nice chess piece to have in that sense. I’m not ready to quit Ju Guu Brent’s making an impact as an outside corner either. So, like he’s as a fifth guy to have in here, as a guy that was a second round pick just a couple years ago that hasn’t necessarily been bad when he’s played. He’s just been up and down as a lot of young corners are. Um, they draft Justin Wall-E in the third round. I think they view him with a lot of potential as well in the slot. I wasn’t as high on him. That felt like a reach to me even as a Gophers fan. Um, but there could be something that they got from him internally, just kind of the way he sees the game that they really like from him. We’ll we’ll see. I mean, that’s got to be the deepest corner room that we’ve talked about so far. And you have a good starting three. So, it’s a great starting point. Um, the safety duo is fine. I I think the Cam Binham signing was a necessity. They needed a guy that could do everything. I don’t think they felt that Julian Blackman was versatile enough to be that guy. Cam Binham did everything in Brian Flores’s defense and he’s going to be able to come in be a leader. He is he is like a very much an archetype balanced split safety that can play free safety, do a little bit down in the box, do your two shell stuff. Uh former corner at Cal, so he can do a little bit of man stuff if you really want him to. He’s fine. I just I don’t value him as a $15 million a year player, but I’m not going to slam them for it because they did have a hole there. And I I understand Louumo what he went through in Cincinnati. These safeties are asked to do a lot and he needed a guy that could handle everything he’s going to put put on his plate. So from a schematic standpoint, he could bring some value um beyond strictly the kind of um results on field production if you will. Um but Nick Cross next to him, he’s really exciting. He’s probably got the highest upside to get even better in this unit. He heads into year four and hasn’t really broken out yet, but I think you could argue he’s still on track. He was wicked young coming out. He was 20 years old when he got drafted. So, he’s heading into his contract rookie season here uh or or or contract year of his rookie deal. He’s not even 24 years old yet. There was a lot of safeties drafted this year that were 24 years old in April. So, very much on the right trajectory. Basically didn’t play his rookie season, which I think was the plan. I mean, they traded I think they traded like a future third to get him in that year’s third knowing they wanted to kickstart his development. 2023 plays a little bit last year. He ends up starting the whole season. Had his ups and downs, but played his best football down the stretch. He became a real presence in run defense for this team. He’s a big safety, 6′ 215, but like tremendous acceleration, uh, good speed, a special athlete that just had been underdeveloped when they brought him in. And and like this could be a big year for Nick Cross. He has all of the traits to be like a top 10 safety in the NFL. I know he hasn’t really given us that production yet, but he did have three picks last year and they weren’t all like just fell in his lap. Like um he showed range on a Trevor Lawrence interception, picked off Bone Knicks. Like his ability to close to the sideline, like he can play the post, he can play deep safety even though he’s 215 pounds. So the fact that he has that showed some of the instincts and ball skills, we know he can man up tight ends. The run defense came along. what can’t this guy do? It’s it’s just about everything coming together in terms of how he’s able to anticipate and see uh route concepts developing in front of him and all that stuff. So, he’s going to spend a lot of time around the box. I think back to Von Bell um in those those good Luaro defenses like that’s kind of his role, but Von Bell would also rotate into two shell. Um, you can catch defenses by surprise where Nick Cross is rotating high and Cam Bayham’s buzzing down like, okay, Binham kind of is what it is, but what he is, but Nick Cross has exciting potential. So, if he takes another step this year and Chavarius Ward gets back to himself from 2023, this can be one of the best secondaries in the entire NFL and a unit I’m really excited about. Um, there is some safety depth. You know, Rodney Thomas has played. That’s about the nicest thing I can say about him. And then they have a couple interesting prospects. Hunter Waller as a seventh round pick was initially listed as a linebacker. Um now back with the safety group. We’ll see what they want to do with him in time. It could be like a a a year-long linebacker conversion project. would not be surprised if they get him started in some ways like they did with Jalon Carly’s last year with the old staff where he is a safety but it’s a big nichls safety um or a dime safety where he’s basically a linebacker though he’s listed with the secondary and then maybe by the end of his first season and into his first real off season they do ask him to bulk up and be more of a linebacker depending how Jalon Carly’s plays um but I liked Waller a lot as a strong safety. Um, loves to hit, showed some instincts in coverage. He’s got good long speed, but he’s pretty stiff. For a seventh round pick, I really like his skill set if the right coach can find a use for him. And if nothing else, like between him and Juju Brents in tandem with Binham and Cross and Kenny Moore, there is, you know, like Brent and Waller have individual things that they’re very good at. So, as matchup corners, as specific package defensive backs, these guys could make impacts in those specific games where they’re doing something a little bit different to take away what other offenses are trying to do. So, so the depth really matters here with Lennar Rumo’s past evidence of of finding those sixth, seventh DBs that can do something for you. And then Daniel Scott, talented player coming out of California, but the dude hasn’t been able to play. He’s been hurt every year. a lot of traits and ball skills coming out of Cal. So, maybe even another like true free safety guy if he can get healthy. He just hasn’t been able to play. Um, but yeah, really fun secondary man to round out this roster. I I I like it, dude. As far as the overall defense, it again is just a very solid unit. It isn’t without its questions and potential holes with the LB2 spot. But if, as I’ve said before, if LB2 and like rotational Dline depth are your holes, well, there’s other defenses that have, you know, starting edge rushers that just can’t play or starting corners that are true liabilities. Like, there’s other spots that are much bigger concerns than LB2 and Dline depth. An entirely balanced defense for me. They ranked 22nd for pass defense, 22nd for run defense, comes out 24th overall for total defense. There is some upside to get better than that. I think the secondary can exceed their ranking. I think the pass rush can get a little bit higher, whereas right now they’re basically bottom third in the league, even if they’re at the top of that group. 23rd to 25th again is where we had them for pass rush. Um, it can get a little bit better that between Abukham and Lu, but not, you know, not a ton better probably. And then the main thing too is like can Luarumo prove that he’s an elite schemer and defensive coach again as he once was damn near elite for the Bengals? Um, so could this be, for example, the 15th best defense in the NFL? I certainly think that’s reasonable. Top 10 would be a bit of a stretch. You kind of need everything to go right for that to happen. But I think you can see again like we talked about with the offense, high floor. They do a lot of good stuff here. They got a lot of pieces to work with and there are aspects of this team that will be very fun to watch for the real football junkies out there. Even if you have to maybe glance past the Daniel Jones of it all at times. Um, we do have to talk about the special teams here. Not the highest ranking unit. They come out 25th for special teams. Main question there is going to be the kicker Spencer Shrader. We just don’t know too much about him. played at Notre Dame, kicked well in three different stops last year. Um, so just kind of a to be determined kicker there, but they seem to believe in him as the answer. He is going to compete with an undrafted rookie in Maddox Truo by the way, uh, out of Temple. So maybe it’s not Trader, but whoever wins that battle is going to be to be determined. Rickberto Sanchez, a very average punter. He ranked 12th last year, so I guess slightly above average. Um, and then the return situation, Anthony Gold showed some good stuff on punts last year. And then they kind of just use a bunch of different guys on kicks. Wouldn’t be surprised if we see like DJ Giddens and Khalil Herbert get back there, too. But Josh DS, Ashton, Dulan, Tyler Goodson also did some kicks. So, it’s a bunch of different guys that do that. They ranked last year 21st for both PFF and DVOA team grades on special teams. So that’s really all we got with the special teams. Like it outside of the main question at kicker, they’re just kind of solid. But let’s recap this team’s strengths, weaknesses, and pivotal factors that can determine the ultimate success of this team. Uh so for strengths, I do think this team has some legitimate strengths about them. I think the overall weaponry is a strength, especially the balanced. They have an answer for everything. They have someone to play every role that you could possibly ask for and they have depth. You love the backfield as well with Jonathan Taylor having a top seven to eight running back is a strength. They have high-end offensive line talent that the overall offensive line very well could be a legitimate strength for this team if those young players at center and right guard come through. But even if they don’t, like you’re going to be able to do a lot of good stuff around Raymond, Quentyn Nelson, and Braden Smith. Another strength, offensive coaching. I I still consider what Shane Stiken can do as a strength for this team. So, there’s a lot to work with there. Now, as far as the weaknesses, obviously, the quarterback is a negative impact on everything we talked about with the offense. They’ve got to get that room at least sorted out somewhat. linebacker, specifically LB2, is a relative weakness compared to the league, depending on what Jalon Carles can do. But there’s probably more likelihood that linebacker is a relative weakness for this team than a strength. Interior Dline depth and rotation. Probably the biggest hole that I that I’m like worried about with this team is the second Grover Stewart comes off the field. Okay, it’s duo. we’re coming right at you and there’s nothing you can do about it. We’ve seen that in games past with this Colts team and I don’t know that they have the answer to that this year, at least not yet. And then you got some of those big pivotal wildcard factors. Obviously, Anthony Richardson, if there’s any upside in there at all, can he get healthy? That’s that’s the ultimate wild card for this team. If if there’s a 3% chance that Anthony Richardson starts to figure things out here and just kind of gets us excited about him again, we’re really in business with this Colts team as we’ve seen. Like they kind of have everything else for the most part figured out. Um outside of some small some small holes that are very fixable. Yeah, if Richardson gets back on track, man, this could this could this team could really surprise. Pretty unlikely, but I think you at least have to consider that as a loose possibility. we mentioned the center and right guard are going to depending are going to determine if the offensive line is elite or just good um basically but I do think Bordellini and Gonzalez have upside within their own right to be good players. Um, and then with the defense, you just got some of those question marks. Ibukham coming off of the injury, what version of him do we get? Plus Latu Latu in year two. If you hit some green lights with that defensive line, the defensive line can be much closer to a strength for this team, which is going to naturally make this defense much more scary to face. We talked about the LB2 spot with Jalon Carly’s. If he’s just good in year two, great. Linebacker is going to be just fine for them. And then Chavarius Ward, I’m not too worried about it, but he did struggle when he was on the field last year, changing scenery, getting a little bit older. There is still a chance that he isn’t quite what they’re paying him to be, in which case we need to pump the brakes on this secondary a little bit. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I think you got to be realistic about that as at least a possibility. But let’s take a look at the schedule before we bring in Zack Hicks for the interview. Um, a tale of two halves for this Colts team and their schedule. It starts pretty damn favorable. You’ve got home games in there against Miami, Las Vegas, Tennessee. They host Arizona and Denver. Can they get one of those? Math would say yeah, probably. Um, and then they play Atlanta in Berlin week 10 before the by-week. Definitely some tough road games in there though with the Rams, Chargers, and even at Pittsburgh is not going to be easy. Um, but could this team actually get off to a pretty nice start? I think so. With this schedule, this is at least I think a 500 football team with that start, if not a game or two above 500. But after that by week, after the international trip to Berlin, it’s uh it’s put up a shutup time really. You go to Kansas City fresh off the buy. You got both your Houston games in there. You have to go to Jacksonville. You have to host Jacksonville. I don’t love getting Jacksonville late because they’re a team that has a lot of moving pieces, a very young um regime. Basically, they’re going to have a lot of time to figure their out before you have to play them there. You have to go to Seattle. You have to host San Francisco. Yeah, Indie better have that quarterback room figured out after the by-week because that’s going to make or break everything we talked about in terms of this team being closer to a 500 football team. Shane Stiken hopefully kind of impressing uh Carly Ers enough to keep his job. It’s it is that final sevengame stretch where you that’s the devil on your shoulder saying, “Okay, well that was cute what you did in the first twothirds of the season, but let’s go now. This is the real meat of the schedule.” Um, but at the end of the day, I think Vegas’s overunder on them is spoton. The math I have with this schedule is exactly seven and a half wins. That’s where Vegas has them. I’m obviously a bit higher on this team. I think their floor is still really nice. And maybe a part of that is I am just a little bit more optimistic about what Daniel Jones can do to raise the floor of this overall team. Having seen this team win eight, nine games the last two years with Gardenner Mchu and Joe Flacco. Can they do that with Daniel Jones in what I think is an even better team? Yeah, I do think they can do that. But we’re still talking about a Daniel Jones le football team. This team could just run out of gas to make that happen at any given point. So, I’m probably staying away from betting on this team. Again, I see anywhere from probably six to nine wins for this Colts team. And yeah, that means they don’t have the real playoff upside of some of these other teams, but I do think their floor is better in my opinion. But with that, let’s bring in Zack Hicks uh from the Locked On podcast, the Horseshoe Huddle as well. Man knows his Colts. A great conversation. So, don’t go away. Let’s bring in Zack Hicks. Zack, welcome back to the Colts deep dive for what should be the fifth straight year, but I do have to apologize to you and the fans. Uh, my idiot self decided to book a Euro trip and a cross country move last summer. So, my scheduling was a little bit of a mess. Couldn’t get you on last year, but it is so good to have you back. One of our favorite guests every single year. How you doing, man? I’m doing good, man. I’m I’m glad to be back. I completely forgot about the snub last year. So, thank you for reminding me of just my anger towards that, but no, we’re feeling good. Thank you for having me, man. Uh excited to talk some Colts as always here. Some uh definitely some interesting narratives for this team um heading into this upcoming season. But, uh there’s definitely just having posted some of these deep dive episodes, there is I think a consensus opinion that this team is just going to suck. I do not think that’s necessarily the case. Um, but I do want to kind of just get right into it with the sort of elephant in the room with the Anthony Richardson quarterback situation here. Uh, obviously another injury for him. He’s going to be heading into camp with some questions. Definitely would love uh just number one just like an update for you there on on his injury status. But I guess the main question here that myself and I know many people are thinking about is as we head into this year, is it kind of still from your perspective a little bit of hope with Richardson that he can get back out there and and take another shot at being this team’s franchise quarterback or is it more kind of in the negative light of it’s kind of almost he’s a bust at this point and this is Daniel Jones’s quarterback room and anything you get from Richardson is house money at this point. I know I threw a lot on your plate there, but I I’ll let you kind of uh take that in whichever direction you want. Yeah. To start it off with this current injury, it appears it’s going to be all like everything go here at the start of training camp. He’s had multiple reports come out saying that, you know, it was just a little bit of a scare. Just needs some rest and and he’s going to be good to go to start training camp. I think we saw Zack Adall uh who’s a Florida beat writer report on that. We saw Tom Pelisero report on that as well. So, uh, it does seem like he’s going to be good to go for the start of training camp. Now, does that lessen the concern with Anthony Richardson? I think that’s a resounding no at this point. And here’s really where my dilemma comes with Anthony Richardson where it’s like this past season was a regression in so many ways. You know, there was a lot of positive in his rookie season. wasn’t perfect, but for a player with the his age, his youth, and with his ability, just to come out there as a rookie and show the flashes that he did, we had a lot of optimism going into last season here in the Colts fan base. And for him to have multiple injury setbacks, the benching, his play really drop off. Like, it did get a little bit better postbenching, but then the back injury came up at the end of the season. So, you’re looking at this player where it’s not only that the play had took a step back last year, but the injuries also ramped up yet again. And you really can’t have both when it comes to being an NFL player. You can’t have constant injuries and the lack of top play when you’re on the field. Uh, so it’s hard for a team to justify continually rolling you out there even if you were a top five pick like he was. I mean, we saw that with Trey Lance with with the 49ers where they kind of had to pull the trigger pretty quick and make that move to Brock Pury when the injuries were piling up and and Party was showing enough to where he earned that spot. So, yeah, it’s it’s a tough situation with Anthony Richardson. I think the Colts are probably still optim more optimistic on him than much of the fan base because again the NFL is so much of what have you done for me lately? And through two years, Richardson hasn’t done enough for this Colts fan base right now. Uh the talent is still just fantastic. We saw the flashes last year. We saw what he could be in week one versus Houston where he came out the gates just launching those deep balls and and looked like one of the most fun quarterbacks in football. We saw uh some really good rushing performances like the start of that Denver Broncos game uh when that was a win and game and they were on their way to winning that game before Jonathan Taylor dropped the ball at the one yard line. you know, of all the players to make that mistake. Right. Right. And and he was playing well in that game. We saw him come back after the benching and just shred the New York Jets and have just a fantastic quarterback game. So, you can’t fully give up on him. I don’t think it’s purely in the the range of this guy is 100% a bust. It’s not going to work out. Just give it to Daniel Jones. But it is if you’re like a a coaching staff that needs to win this year, needs to make the playoffs or a general manager that needs to make the playoffs this year, it’s hard to go back to Anthony Richardson when there was regression last season, there was the benching, there has been these these constant injuries. It’s just hard to really rely on that. So, I still maintain that a healthy Anthony Richardson just gives him the best chance going forward because he’s so young and so talented. But at this point, what is a healthy Anthony Richardson? we just haven’t seen that in the NFL. So, um to answer your question fully, it’s just kind of a tough situation with the Colts. Uh they have a team that’s ready to make the playoffs. That’s a good roster, a good coaching staff. Uh they’ve added some really quality vets in this this past offseason, but the quarterback play with Anthony Richardson and Daniel Jones might be the one thing that really holds them back. Yeah. Do you get the sense as we kind of because camps are starting up here in a couple weeks. Do you get the sense it’ll basically be like a 5050 kind of split and then they’re just going to kind of see see what feels right as camp goes on then? Yeah, I think it will be more of a 50-50 split. I I know my impression when they first signed Jones was this was more just to push Richardson, get him ready to go and and hopefully you can see a better version, a more focused version of Richardson throughout training camp. But with this latest injury with Jones getting so many more reps in mini camp and who knows may like maybe at the first couple days of training camp Richardson still taking a little bit slow and Daniel Jones is getting like 70% of the snaps. That’ll be another just edge towards Daniel Jones and and it kind of goes back to the gardener Mchu season of like 2023 with the Colts where it’s like yes what Mchu was doing out there wasn’t sexy. It wasn’t fun. I mean, there were some goofy fun parts of it, but for the most part, it wasn’t as fun as like Richardson being on the field. But at the end of the day, they were winning more games with when Mchu was out there because he would just get the ball out of his hands and let playmakers do their thing. So, if you’re again, if you’re a coaching staff with your back against the wall and you’re seeing a guy like Jones where the complete opposite of Anthony Richardson, Richardson’s AOT is 15 yards down the field that he’s going to force feed the ball ver in the vertical plane. Daniel Jones is going to force feed the ball in the flats. he’s going to force the ball on the on the curls and the drags. Um, but that can move the offense a little bit better. You know, again, if you’re a coaching staff that’s trying to keep your job, that might sell you uh here in training camp. So, I think it’s going to be a pretty close battle. Um, it I would want Richardson to win it just because, right, I think fans would prefer that. Yeah. Yeah. We’ve seen Jones at this point, but at some point you do have to just kind of pull the plug and and make the move that’s best for your franchise. And if Richardson can’t stay healthy and stay consistent, you do kind of have to make that move, I think. Yeah. Well, there’s also the deep fear, too, of like a best case scenario for Daniel Jones is like he’s the the quarterback in 2026 as well. And it’s just like that’s definitely not what you want. I mean, we had Bengal on for the Giants deep dive last year and he could hardly talk about the team because he just knew exactly what was going to happen with him at QB. Uh hopefully the infrastructure here is is good enough to give you a little bit more of an exciting outcome than what the Giants were giving them back there. But uh cool. Yeah, that’s that’s definitely a good perspective on it. Um I want to turn the page a little bit and and talk about the passing of Jim Ers. Uh you know, there’s there’s definitely been a lot of uh polarizing conversation about kind of his legacy. A lot of uh you know, substance abuse kind of uh discussions surrounding him. We don’t we don’t necessarily have to talk about that. Um, but I I did just want to kind of ask you as someone that’s been so close to the Colts for as long as you’ve had you you have, you know, maybe in 10 years when you look back on Jim Ers’s legacy as the as the Colts owner, what’s kind of the first thing or two that comes to your mind with him? Yeah, I think when I first think of Jim Ersce, I think of a very imperfect person in a lot of ways. Very imperfect, but everything he did was with such passion and just fervor for what he’s doing. whether it’s just the Colts in general, like you never had to question his love for the Colts. You like you could question how much involvement he has in it. You could question if he’s doing the things right, if he’s too loyal to his guys, but you could never question his love for the Colts in the Indianapolis community. He was at the forefront of everything in terms of uh being the the guy who took questions on the head for everything. He like for the Jeff Saturday thing, for instance, he was the one out there taking the questions. he didn’t dodge that stuff because he truly loves just everything about football uh for better and for worse. So, uh a really endearing guy that I think a lot of Colts fans, yes, polarizing person. I’m not going to sit here and and go through the pros and cons of Jim Ers, uh but I think in Indianapolis, this is a beloved person just because he was such a a kind soul to Indianapolis just in terms of uh he cared about the football team. He helped bring them a championship. I mean, that’s always a huge aspect of this. Uh, and he again, he was so active in the community from from kicking the stigma to so many other uh great community outreach things. Uh, from everything I’ve heard from fans, just from anytime a fan got a chance to talk to him, he never blew them off. He always had conversations with them and and gave back a lot to the community. So, look, I’m not going to sit here and say all owners are good people or great people or anything like that, but like in terms of the type of owner that you can get of an NFL franchise to get this overly passionate like crazed football fan that just cares. I think that’s on the better side of the spectrum. So, I fully believe Jim Ersce is going to age really well in the Indianapolis community for a long time. I I think he’s beloved in this city. Uh, and regardless of what people want to say and look back on his past and and look back on the on the issues he’s had in his life, I do think at least in one city in in the country, he’s going to be beloved for for the rest of time. So, yeah, if that’s your legacy as a person, man, I I think you you can’t complain too much. Uh, Jim Ers will be missed. Um, and I will just miss that energy that he brought. Uh, again, for better or for worse, I will miss that energy that he brought to everything. It’s the fun, you know. I think it’s good. It’s part of why I wanted to ask you cuz like the there’s definitely like a national opinion on him, but I get the sense that that’s definitely not the the full story and kind of how people view him closer to it. So, that’s that’s really cool. Um, but there is kind of a a second part of the question here with the ownership ch, you know, changing. Um, is kind of what sort of pressure does this now put on Shane Stiken and Chris Ballard? Um, with with Jim no longer there, uh, does it make it more of a hot seat season for them or or are they going to maybe get a little extra tenure because of this to kind of get another quarterback and and get a further evaluation? What do you think about that? Yeah, my initial uh expectation going into this was that Carly Ers, who’s going to be doing more of the football side of things in this ownership group, uh was going to maybe take it a little bit slow, you know, see what they have for the next couple years, maybe even run it back a little bit with some of the guys just to really get her feet wet in the business. Uh but maybe I even misunderstood her experience or not misunderstood, but just underestimate her experience in the NFL. She’s been working with around this game for almost 20 years from doing ticketing with the Colts to having roles with the NFL and with NFL media. Uh running a lot of aspects of this Colts organization, sitting in for Jim Ers when Jim Ersce was away for, you know, those multiple off off the- field type things that we were talking about. Um she’s been doing a lot of things with this organization for a long time. And the sense I’ve kind of gotten these these past couple weeks is that she’s a lot less loyal than than her father was in terms of this is a business. And yes, there is that that small business feel to it and there’s still that loyalty, but it can’t be what it was with Jim where you keep guys for a hundred years because you know, oh, they’ll write the ship eventually. It’s like, no, this is a business. There needs to be some results. Uh, and the sense I’ve gotten is Carly Ers is not playing around. So if if this Colts team takes a step back this year or the product on the field is just not improving, I fully expect there to be changes made after the season. And it was always hard to say that with Jim Ers because Jim Merc was so reluctant to ever make those changes because he came from that Bill Polon and Tony Dunie era where he never needed to make challenge or changes to the team. So uh yeah, I think Karly Ers’s kind of seen the best and worst of the cult. She grew up in that winning culture of Pton Manning. She was right there working in like the again the ticketing side of the Colts when they were winning championships and then she started moving to this executive role as the Colts went through this turbulent time of Andrew Luck and these hundred quarterbacks post that and the Chris Ballard era. So she knows success of the Payton Mannings. Uh, but she also knows the the trials and tribulations of of an NFL ownership and I think that she’s going to be a bit more businessminded than Jim Mercy was in terms of making those changes. So, yeah, I think Shane Stiken and Chris Ballard know that like this is a different organizational structure coming. They’re going to make some changes and if they don’t win this year, I I do fully expect changes to be made. All right, it’s go time then. she she doesn’t want her legacy to be the Cleveland Browns jersey uh with with 40 different quarterback names on it, which sadly that’s the direction the Colts have been heading in since since Luck retired. Um but uh all right, let’s let’s get into some some roster questions. Some of the the heavier hitting questions uh for this roster. One of the biggest ones for me is obviously going to be center and right guard with both those guys, Fry and Kelly heading to the Vikings. Uh Fry didn’t play too much for this team last year. He only played the first five games, but still a big loss. Uh what are you kind of expecting at those two spots? Obviously, Tanner Bordellini feels pretty safe at center. Uh Gon Calves was drafted as a tackle, played a little bit of guard um right last year or or no, just tackle. Yeah. So, Matt Gonzalez was actually he got some run at guard in training camp, but got it. They saw what their swing tackle situation looked like in training camp and they’re like, “Okay, Gassaw is going to be our swing tackle uh this year.” Uh they did like Daltton Tucker a decent amount too, so that kind of helped them make that decision. Uh and Daltton Tucker actually filled in for like nine games or something at right guard before he got replaced. Uh but it does look like it’s going to be Gonzalez at right guard and Bordellini versus Pinter at center. Uh Bordellini is probably going to win that battle if I had to guess, but Pinter giving him a shot because he is that veteran in the room. Um, and I’m assuming your question, yeah, your question, not to interrupt you, was was Pinter healthy when Bordellini was playing last year or was that job more just kind of handed handed to Bordellini because he was hurt? So, I believe Pinter was healthy when Bordellini first got his couple of reps out there. But the really interesting was was um there was a twoame stretch late in the season where Kelly was hurt and Pinter started the first of the two games. I think it was against the Patriots and then Bordellini had a concussion that week. Bordellini came back from his concussion and he was healthy for that Broncos game which again was like a win and type game and they started Pinter Bordellini. So with that it does make me think that there is more of a competition there. Uh but I do think it’s going to be Bordellini. They just adore him and I think that they want him to be that future center but I could see a little bit more of a competition there. Okay. And then Gun Calves feels pretty safe at guard then. Um yeah, they don’t really have anyone to compete with him. It’s uh Daltton Tucker. Pinter only. Yeah. Yeah, they tried that in 2022 putting Pinter at right guard and uh that’s how Will Fry got his chance back in the day. But uh yeah, Gonzalez, I think, is going to start at right guard this year. Huge player. Huge, huge player. Uh and I’m assuming your next question with that was going to be like what the expectation is with those guys. Um I do think this was a move the Colts need to make. They need to get younger on the O line. I obviously we would love Will Fryback and made some more moves off of that. But this was the next best option. Get younger because they have to save up for that Baron Hart Ryman extension that’s coming up at left tackle. Uh great off really good offensive tackles don’t grow on trees. So you need to just get him locked up. But Gonzalez I’m really intrigued by. He hasn’t played guard since like high school. If if he even played in high school. I got to call his coach and check it out. Uh but he he hasn’t played guard like at any level outside of left guard for one snap last season for the Colts. Didn’t play guard at all in college. Uh so it’s a really difficult move for him. But we’re looking at a 6’6, 330 lb player where when he got inserted in the lineup last year at right tackle for the last month of the season when Brandon Smith was away from the team, the Colts rolled out this like gap power type of run scheme where he was used as a primary polar on like it was like 15 something 15 plays or so over those that last like month and the Colts were averaging nearly 200 yards rushing per game in the past month. Now they played against some really poor teams in that past in that last month. like the Titans, the Jaguars, like it wasn’t good football teams. The Giants in there, I know the Giants beat him, but the Giants in there. Um, so it wasn’t like they were going against these stout run defenses, but to average to average over 200 yards a game running in the NFL, you’re doing something right. Especially when Joe Flacco is starting for half of those games. Yeah, you don’t have the plus one QB run threat. So, I’m I’m intrigued by Gonzalez in the run game. And I think some of his issues in pass pro can be cleaned up, moved inside just because he doesn’t have to move as much laterally. And then Bordellini, you know, you’re going to have some anchoring issues cuz he’s not the biggest guy, but so athletic. So so athletic. Uh and there’s some legit talent here. There is some fear that he could be like another Garrett Bradbury, but you know, he he’s still not bad when you’re if your other four starters are good. Yeah, that’s true. Like that Yeah. Like I always talk bad about Brad Bur in my head because I was so high on him back in the day as a prospect and I’m like, man, he never turned into the stud that I thought he would be. Uh but yeah, if that’s your center and your other four guys are good, like that’s perfectly fine. So yeah, I think I think they’ll be fine on the offensive line. If they’re all healthy this year, I think it’ll be like, you know, a top 10 unit. You still have Ryman, you still have Quinton Nelson, Braden Smith. Hopefully you can get more than like 10 games out of him this year. Uh, but I think it’s still a really solid offensive line for sure. And yeah, if they were more worried about it, you would like to think they would invest have invested in it more. They really didn’t do a lot. Um, yeah. All right. So, the the other guy that kind of dealt with some injuries last year was Michael Pitman. And the like I’m excited to ask you about this because I just it wasn’t until like the end of the year. I know I had a lot of stakes in Michael Pitman, but it wasn’t until the end of the year that I fully realized he was like playing through a back injury because he still played in like 15 games. So tell us a little bit more about kind of what he was dealing with and if that’s still a concern or if you’re maybe really excited about him kind of getting back healthy this year. Yeah, the worst kind of injury for a player to have on a long-term contract is a back injury. You hear back injury and it’s just terrifying. Uh and yeah, he it was such a weird scenario because I remember early last season, Adam Shfter was reporting that Pitman was going on IR with surgery on his back that he was going to be done for a good amount of time. Uh, and it seemed like that was the direction it was going, like the Colts were also recommending that for Pitman, but because he’s a veteran player on a long-term contract, they left it up to him. And him being just crazy, he was like, “No, I’m going to play through it the whole season.” And yeah, his play did take a bit of a step back as a result. uh he he didn’t have the same level of athleticism and movement and you could see a few games out there where he was really laboring, but he was still pretty fine for a player dealing with a major back injury that required surgery. Uh so as long as as long as that can get recovered like this whole offseason just spent the time to recover and he can get back to what he was, I think he can get back to being a thousand plus yard receiver. I mean he’s just great hands, physical player, really good over the middle of the field. Uh the quarterback situation will be part of it for sure. I mean that’s that’s always a big part of this. But um there’s no reason to believe that Michael Pitman Jr. can’t get back to that. He’s healthy. Uh because that back injury was pretty bad last year. I don’t know exactly what it was. Uh but again, they were talking about shutting him down as early as like week five last season. Yeah. I I feel like that’s a potential area that people are sleeping on the Colts a little bit is just like because we were talking a little bit before like people think this team’s going to suck and it’s like well they’re not just getting worse everywhere and their best playmaker might actually be himself this year which is kind of a big deal. So um very cool. Uh there’s there’s a couple players on defense I want to get your thoughts on too. Latu Latu, one of my favorites in last year’s draft. Uh, I’m I’m gonna let you fill in the blank here and then take it from there. Latu Latu’s rookie season was blank. Solid. It was solid. Really solid. Um, I I think it kind of got overshadowed because Jared Verse was just an animal with with the Rams. And the thing is with Lu that that concerns me, but also again he’s still figuring things out as an NFL player is we’re seeing these guys have immediate success success in the NFL when they come in with just this power game ready to go. Yeah. And Leatu Ladu is built like a power rusher. You know, he’s almost 270 pounds, two like two high 260s. Um but he’s just not that kind of player. He’s not a power rusher. He’s more of a finesse rusher. more wins with his hands and and turns the corner and but he doesn’t have the chop Robinson bend either to you know turn the corner at a high level. So where is he going to win in this league? So, that’s more of my question for him going forward is does he really put everything he can into being that power rusher, you know, and being much stronger, winning with the long arm, winning with uh the bull rush and and developing things off of that, or does he try to slim down and be more of a speed rusher and win with his hands and turn the corner? Um, even if he doesn’t, you know, become perfect in either of those things, I still think he’s a really solid player. But right now, the Colts need more than solid from him. They need him to be that legit number one pass rusher. It’s good that Louis an Rumo is coming in here and you can kind of isolate him the way that they isolated Trey Hendrickson last year with Cincinnati Bengals. A lot of, you know, we’re going to just place you on one side by yourself, put Buckner and everybody else on the other, go win your one-on-one matchup. I I think he can be pretty successful there. He did show some good things late last season. Uh but it’s all about building and moving on from there. So solid was is perfectly fine for for for the first year, but now we’re getting into year two. His his age 25 season with high expectations as a top 15 pick. It needs to be more than solid this season. So like if we had to do like a panic meter on him, it’s not high or anything yet, but it is certainly like it’s go time for Latu and he can certainly get there. Maybe a little fear that like it’s kind of quitty pay again where it’s like he’s just okay, right? Um, yeah, which isn’t like panic, but it is like disappointing for sure, right? Like you spent in the top 15 like even with pay it was like in the 20s and it was like okay like when you it also doesn’t have the Chris Ballard saying we got the best effing pass rusher in the draft like up a little. Yeah. Then he was like the third best in his rookie season. It’s like okay again this is a long game. We’re not, it’s not all about the rookie season, but Chop Robinson and and and Jared Vers look like legit stars last year where lot two really good moments, but like we need a little bit more from him. Uh I I I am curious to see what he looks like with more snaps this season. He was heavily rotated last year more as a designated pass rusher last year. So maybe more snaps he can get more into the game flow and and be a bit more productive. So yeah, the book’s not out on him or the jury’s not on him whatsoever. I think he can be a good player for the Colts and and really earn that star status because if he can emerge as a legit number one edge rusher for the Colts, this defense, the projection goes from like a top 20 unit to maybe you’re getting in the top 15 type of unit, top 10 unit on on good days, you know. Yeah, absolutely. No, I totally agree with the power aspect there. Would love to see him just load up some like Zidarius Smith film. I think that’s probably the player that like would would be best for model’s game off of cuz Zidarius also wins with a lot of the swipes. He doesn’t quite have the bend that Lu has at that size, but yeah, you do need that power to kind of to piggy back off of it. Um, very well said. Uh, the other guy that’s is a total question mark for me is uh Jaylen Carly’s. So, I just want your thoughts on him. Uh, he’s going to be LB2. I would assume it’s it’s his job to to certainly lose at this point, but yeah, what are your thoughts on on Carly’s? Yeah, it does seem like he’s going to be LB2. Now, the Colts in mini camp, and again, mini camp’s not perfect indic indicative of like perfectly indicative of like what they’re going to do in the regular season, but they did do a lot more three safety sets in in mini camp or putting Nick Cross in the in the box as like the extra linebacker on passing downs. So, that’ll be an interesting thing to look at come regular season. But, as of right now, it does look like it’s going to be Carl once he gets back from his injury uh that he he had surgery for this this off seasonason. a really long athletic linebacker that was a safety in college. Had some really good moments last year. I know Pro Football Focus loved him in coverage. Only like 40 coverage snaps, but like really good coverage reps in those in those snaps. It’s just we got to see more. Like he’s he’s just a young player who’s a day three pick that didn’t get a ton of run as a rookie. I’m a little bit nervous of the Colts just handing him a starting job. Uh because his main competition right now is like Cam Mcgrron and Joe Bachi who you know like they’re fine like depth players. Cam Mcronone and Joe Bachi. Right. Right. Like you’re not like I would have loved to for them to have gone out and get like a Cody Barton who like if Jaylen Carly beats out like a Cody Barton. It’s not the end of the world. Like it’s not the biggest shocking thing ever. But if Barton wins that job, you have a high floor type of starter next to Zyra Franklin. You know, I would have loved that for the Colts. But there’s always one position that Ballard trusts his young guys a little bit too much. Hopefully Carl can stay healthy and and prove that he can be a good coverage guy next to Zyra Franklin who’s more of a run and chase like playmaker at the mic position. Uh linebacker certainly a bit concerning uh going into this year, but I think if these guys are healthy and if they are meshing well, I I think it can be a fine linebacker room. just comes down to what we see out of a, you know, a year two, day three pick that move from safety to linebacker. It’s a bit crazy on paper. Absolutely. Yeah. Not just uh not just NFL year two, it’s literally his second year as a linebacker, right? Yeah. It’s it’s tough to just like I I just think it was too early to give him the keys. I would have loved another draft pick in here or I would have loved again like a Cody Barton signing or maybe they view Joe Botchi signing as that because he has the experience with Lou the last couple years in Cincinnati but that doesn’t inspire me too much. You know what would have been perfect would have been the two-year 11 million Hakee Davis Gaither contract. Yeah, that’s I was calling for that the whole off season because like he he was like the better depth linebacker there from from the Bengals. But yeah, that was perfect. Yeah. Um, all right. So, we’re gonna finish up here. I’m going to put you on the spot as I’ve been doing with our guests. I’m going to keep track of our guest records, uh, picking their teams over under for the year. Uh, so you’re going for accuracy. Uh, over under, seven and a half wins for the Colts this year. Oh, it’s such a tough one to put them at because I, you know, I will validate your your commenters here where it’s like I understand completely when people say like, “Oh my gosh, the Colts can’t be above our team.” Because I think the Colts range this year is anywhere from the worst team in football to, you know, the six seed in the AFC. Like they really could be anywhere in that range because it’s a playoff caliber roster with arguably the worst quarterback room in football. And we know how that goes. It the Titans last year didn’t have the worst roster ever, but their quarterback room was such a mess that they got the first overall pick. So, I think seven and a half is perfect for them. I’m I’m gonna go over, but like the over is like eight. Yeah, the over is which is what they had last year. Yes. It’s what they’ve had every year. It feels like since Andrew Luck and Well, since Philip Rivers, they’ve just been this like eight to nine win team. Uh I think that’s where they’re going to end up being. Another eight- win season where they beat a couple good teams they shouldn’t beat. They lose to a couple bad teams that they shouldn’t lose to. They’ll go to overtime against the Titans twice. Right. Right. That’s just how it goes with this team. They’ll go three, they’ll go two and four or three and three in the division like always. Lose in Jacksonville, somehow steal a game or go to the wire against Houston in a game, get blown out by Jacksonville. Like, it’s just how it goes. So, yeah, they’ll be like a a a feisty eight- win team that was so close to the playoffs. We’re just right around the corner. It’s just kind of how it’s been the last like five years with this team. Four or five years with this team. Yeah, I I’m like right there in line with you for sure. Um, all right. Well, that’s going to do it. Uh, everybody, make sure you are following Zack, Zack Hicks 2, on Twitter. I guess you still haven’t chased down the original Zack Hicks quite yet. No, I I will make a quick joke on this though. I I looked on, this is me being very, uh, humble, obviously. I was looking on Google’s like AI feature. I was like, who’s the most prominent Zack Hicks out there? I’m the second most prominent behind a basketball player that’s got a summer league contract with the Celtics. So the Zack Hicks 2 thing stands like I I am second best behind him. This this is a good bit like yeah you need to monitor his career and like reach out to him like hey if you don’t make it I get he’s not even on socials man I was going to call him out for it. He’s not even on socials. Like I was like man you you deserve Zack Hicks. I’m Zach Hicks too until until I make the Celtics. Then once I surpass you on the Celtics roster then you’re going down buddy. H I love it. Uh but yeah, horseshoe huddle uh for for Zach as well. Um and then the Locked on Colts podcast, too. So definitely uh check out all of his good work. Zack, you Zach, thank you so much for coming on and uh we’ll definitely try to keep the streak going next year. Awesome. So, thank you so much to Zach for taking the time to come on. Thank you all of you for watching. Um I’m excited to hear from you guys. Did I change your opinion? Did I sell you on this Colts team with the 21st ranking maybe not being so bad or am I still an idiot? If you think so, let me know. I want to hear from you all in the comments down below. I just appreciate you guys so much for watching. At the end of the day, this series has been a blast and I’ll see you guys for the next deep dive. Peace out. [Music]

A comprehensive preview of the 2025 Indianapolis Colts! In this video, we’ll review Offseason Changes, the Coaching Staff, what the Offensive & Defensive Schemes will look like, how each position group stacks up against the rest of the League, and finally take a look at their schedule and win total expectations!

Thank you Bear for sponsoring today’s Deep Dive! Click here https://bearmattress.com/thatfranchiseguy and use
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Be sure to follow Zach Hicks (Zachhicks2) on Twitter, on the “Locked On Colts” Podcast, and over at Horseshoe Huddle.

Audio Versions of this show are posted on the “Fully Inflated Football Podcast” 24 Hours after the video is posted!

My QB Tiers

Tier 1 – Elite
QBs who give you a shot at a Super Bowl every year almost regardless of roster talent.

Tier 2 – Great
QBs who elevate their team who you would expect to win a Super Bowl in a 10-year window at their current level of play.

Tier 3 – Good
QBs who can get the most out of a great team and give you a shot at a Super Bowl as long kolas the team stays great around him.

Tier 4 – Fine (Split into Developing & Capped)
Clearly a starting caliber QB but are either in their growth stages as a prospect or have reached a ceiling that suggests you will have a very hard time winning a championship with this player.

Tier 5 – Fringe Starter (Split into Developing & Capped)
A QB flirting with the line of being one of the Top 32 QBs in the league. Is either a capped, bridge Quarterback for a team, or a talented, young QB with upside and at least a 1 year runway to show development on his current team.

Tier 6 – Backup (Split into Developing & Capped)
Either a veteran backup who has reached his ceiling, or an intriguing young backup who could surprise someday if given an opportunity.

QB Run Multiplier is for the Designed Run Game Only! Scheme & usage is heavily considered. The QBs
Scrambling ability is a part of my Passing grade and evaluation.

Team Formulas
Team Overall)
64% Offense | 35% Defense | 1% Special Teams

Team Offense)
64% Passing Game | 36% Run Game

Passing Game)
40% QB Passing | 30% Weapons | 21% Pass Blocking | 8% Pass Game Coaching | 1% Coach & Culture

Run Game)
45% Run Blocking | 32% Runningback | 20% Run Game Coaching | 3% Coach & Culture | QB Run applied as a Multiplier

Team Defense)
65% Pass Defense
35% Run Defense

Pass Defense
45% Pass Rush | 30% DB Coverage | 6% LB Coverage | 17% Pass Defense Coaching | 2% Coach & Culture

Run Defense
41% DL Run Defense | 30% LB Run Defense | 25% Run Defense Coaching | 4% Coach & Culture | DB Run Support applied as Multiplier

Chapters
Intro 0:00
Offseason Changes 2:10
Coach & Scheme 10:17
Quarterback 29:54
Weapons 42:12
Backfield 1:01:37
O-Line 1:07:56
Offensive Summary 1:18:59
Defensive Line 1:20:05
Linebackers 1:38:50
Secondary 1:43:29
Defensive Summary 1:57:17
Special Teams & Team Summary 1:58:44
Schedule & Win Total Projections 2:03:55
Interview With Zach Hicks 2:07:04