INDIANAPOLIS—A Colts team that is thin on experience at the linebacker position is going to start the year down a man.
Indianapolis is placing second-year linebacker Jaylon Carlies on injured reserve with a designation to return, a source told IndyStar, due to an ankle injury that has kept him out of action since the team’s preseason opener against Baltimore.
Under the NFL’s injured reserve rules, Carlies must miss a minimum of four weeks and cannot practice. The expectation is Carlies will not be on injured reserve for much more than the four-week minimum required, if that.
Carlies, a fifth-round pick out of Missouri a year ago, was initially in line to take over the starting job at weak-side linebacker after the Colts let E.J. Speed leave in free agency this offseason.
But Carlies has been plagued by injury throughout his two seasons in the NFL so far. Carlies missed seven games as a rookie with a broken fibula and suffered a shoulder injury that required offseason surgery, forcing him to miss the entire spring installation of Lou Anarumo’s defense.
When Carlies returned, he was competing for the starting job on the weak side, then suffered the ankle injury.
Carlies, a former safety at Missouri, has shown promise when he’s been on the field, particularly in coverage. Playing linebacker for the first time as a rookie, Carlies made 36 tackles and a sack in 242 defensive snaps, displaying the sort of range that is hard to find at linebacker.
Indianapolis might be in the market for another linebacker. Indianapolis also waived third-year developmental linebacker Austin Ajiake, who was playing with the second team, and even if Ajiake is back on the practice squad, it would leave the Colts potentially thin at the position.