The Indianapolis Colts have some holes to fill in the 2026 NFL draft, but the team didn’t have a chance to do that in the first round after general manager Chris Ballard traded the 2026 and 2027 first-rounders to the New York Jets in return for cornerback Sauce Gardner.

In essence, the draft for Indy fans didn’t begin until Day 2. The good part is that there is still plenty of talent left, especially at the positions where the Colts most need it. Will Ballard take what the draft has given him, though? Will the GM give head coach Shane Steichen the weapons he needs to mold a winner and a playoff team?

That’s the fun of the draft, right? One never knows exactly what any team will do. This is especially true of Chris Ballard, but the hope is that whatever he does, he gets the picks correct.

Indianapolis Colts mock for Day 2 of the 2026 NFL draftRound 2 – Linebacker Jake Golday, Cincinnati

The Colts have to do something at inside linebacker, and Chris Ballard needs to do that relatively early in the draft. Waiting until the later round doesn’t fill a hole that Ballard created by trading Zaire Franklin and signing Germaine Pratt during the 2025 season.

Pratt played under defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo with the Cincinnati Bengals, and one might have assumed he was fairly poor when he couldn’t even stick with a lousy Las Vegas Raiders squad in the first part of last year. Not so far. Why not just have him return to Anarumo’s system? The issue is that he was awful in pass coverage.

Golday is the kind of athletic player that Ballard has professed he wanted. He can play the run well, go sideline to sideline with speed, and, if asked, could probably be effective on blitzes. He’d be a first-round pick in a league that still valued inside linebackers.

Round 3 – Edge rusher Jaishawn Barham

Just as much as Indianapolis needed an inside linebacker, the team also needed an edge rusher or three. Perhaps JT Tuimoloau gets better and more productive in his second season, or he could be a bust. The only thing that seems certain is that Indy needed to find Laiatu Latu some help.

Can Barham do that? He has the raw athletic ability worth taking a third-round risk on. He is 6’3 1/2″ and 240 pounds with good speed and decent athleticism. He wasn’t overly productive at Michigan (four sacks in 2025), though, and that’s a concern. Can Lou Anarumo turn him into something better than his college form?

If Barham buys into being more disciplined, the DC might. It could be that Barham just had too much athletic ability for what he was being asked to do, and will have a bit more freedom opposite Latu to be himself.

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