Who will start for the Indianapolis Colts on defense in 2025 and what PFF grades did these players receive? Let’s take a look.

Based on how the offseason unfolded, we recently projected what the Indianapolis Colts’ starting defense will look like this season. So now, let’s take a look at what grades those players received from Pro Football Focus for their performances.

To take a position-by-position look at why I think each of these players will be among the starters come Week 1 for the Colts, you can find that reasoning here.

GM Chris Ballard spent heavily in free agency this offseason to reshape the secondary by signing Cam Bynum and Charvarius Ward. The addition of Lou Anarumo as defensive coordinator with his more aggressive and disguise-heavy scheme should help elevate the play of the entire unit as well.

“Really the aggressive mindset,” Bynum said of Anarumo’s defense when asked how it compares to Brian Flores’ defense. “That’s one thing that they share and they have in common, and that’s the mindset that I love to have on defense.

“That we’re going to send pressure, that we’re going to mix things up, variations of everything, but at the end of the day we want to go down with our best guys being aggressive and that’s the mindset I like to have. I don’t want to sit back and just let things happen in front of us, I want to be able to command the offense to be able to do what we want them to do.”

When it comes to PFF’s grading system, this scale will help provide some context behind the numbers. As always, while this grading scale is helpful, it’s not he be-all end-all when it comes to player evaluations.

90.0+: Elite80-89.9: High quality70-79.9: Good60-69.9: Above average50-59.9: Average40-49.9: Below average39.9 or less: PoorPFF grades for Indianapolis Colts‘ projected starting defense in 2025DE Laiatu Latu – 72.1DT DeForest Buckner – 81.9DT Grover Stewart – 76.0DE Kwity Paye – 66.8LB Zaire Franklin – 60.9LB Jaylon Carlies – 69.0CB Charvarius Ward – 56.2CB Kenny Moore – 70.1CB Justin Walley – 71.1S Cam Bynum – 61.6S Nick Cross – 70.3