There are going to be a lot of changes with the Indianapolis Colts’ defense under new coordinator Lou Anarumo, one of which includes how often we see the team deploy three safeties on the field.
As Zach Hicks of Horseshoe Huddle pointed out recently, as the defensive play caller in Cincinnati, Anarumo had three safeties total at least 200 coverage snaps over each of the past two seasons, and injuries were not a primary factor in that.
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As Anarumo described recently, the NFL is a matchup league, which means prioritizing having enough coverage defenders on the field during those more obvious passing situations.
“It’s been a matchup league and certainly if the offense puts out a certain personnel group you want to be able to match it with what they’re doing,” Anarumo said on Wednesday. “Especially on third down, you want to get cover guys covering receivers. Nowadays, tight ends, the days to me of putting linebackers on tight ends is not ideal for the defense.
“So you always want to get a bigger, longer athlete that maybe can run a little bit. A DB mindset. So more DBs out there in pure passing situations is something that we’ve always tried to do and will continue to do.”
We know that Cam Bynum and Nick Cross will be starting at safety for the Colts, but who will be the third safety that Anarumo potentially relies fairly heavily on?
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The obvious choices are either rookie Hunter Wohler or Rodney Thomas, who has played over 1,700 defensive snaps in his career.
Wohler played safety in college, but at the NFL level, he will be at his best playing closer to the line of scrimmage. Thomas, meanwhile, is more of a free safety. As Hicks also notes, which of these two is on the field could hinge on how Anarumo wants to utilize Cross, whether that be as a deep safety or down in the box.
Along with the different personnel groupings, we will also see a greater variety of coverages from the Colts’ secondary in what will be a more disguise-heavy scheme under Anarumo.
This article originally appeared on Colts Wire: Colts usage of safety position will change greatly under Lou Anarumo