{"id":174774,"date":"2025-07-02T05:03:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T05:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/174774\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T05:03:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T05:03:16","slug":"colts-cb-justin-walley-named-teams-biggest-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/174774\/","title":{"rendered":"Colts CB Justin Walley named team’s ‘biggest surprise’"},"content":{"rendered":"

During OTAs and minicamp, which Indianapolis Colts player surprised the most? ESPN recently weighed in.<\/p>\n

During OTAs and minicamp, which\u00a0Indianapolis Colts<\/a>\u00a0player surprised the most?<\/p>\n

Over at ESPN<\/a>, each reporter made that selection for their respective team. When it came to the Colts<\/a>, Stephen Holder selected <\/a>rookie cornerback Justin Walley.<\/p>\n

“Walley has been turning heads throughout the offseason with his aggressive coverage and impressive instincts, and it’s now clear he has a chance to have a significant role in the defense as a rookie,” wrote Holder.<\/p>\n

Holder would also add that with the Colts utilizing a greater variety of coverages under defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo, one way that Walley could carve out a role is in dime packages.<\/p>\n

The Colts picked Walley in the third round of the draft. A bit undersized at 5-10 – 190 pounds, Walley went a lot earlier than what the consensus big boards had projected, but from the jump, the Colts have been very bullish on him and his fit within this new-look defense.<\/p>\n

Walley’s 4.4 speed can help overcome his lack of size, and it allows him to be sticky in man coverage, which we will see a lot more of this season.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Colts<\/a>\u00a0also view Walley as a versatile defender, someone who can be moved around and handle different roles as needed. This ability plays well within Anarumo’s disguise-heavy defensive system.<\/p>\n

“He’s shown me he can be a dog,”\u00a0Charvarius Ward said of Walley<\/a>. “He can cover real well. He has some rookie mistakes, obviously he’s a young guy, but he’s been competing with all the big dogs on offense. I think he got that it factor in him. He confident in himself. He not scared. He don’t act like a rookie all the time, he playing like a vet, got his head on straight. I’ve been proud of him so far, for sure.”<\/p>\n

Along with potentially carving out a role as the sixth defensive back when in dime alignments, Walley could find himself competing with Jaylon Jones and JuJu Brents for that starting spot opposite of Charvarius Ward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During OTAs and minicamp, which Indianapolis Colts player surprised the most? ESPN recently weighed in. During OTAs and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2059],"tags":[247,265,5612,4991,2005,12,388,7,20842,379,2004,392,2381,88,6,35196,245,537,530,9,266,5134],"class_list":{"0":"post-174774","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-american","9":"tag-american-football","10":"tag-charvarius","11":"tag-charvarius-ward","12":"tag-colts","13":"tag-espn","14":"tag-espn-inc","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-hub","17":"tag-inc","18":"tag-indianapolis","19":"tag-indianapolis-colts","20":"tag-indianapoliscolts","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-nfl","23":"tag-nfl-hub","24":"tag-overall","25":"tag-overall-positive","26":"tag-positive","27":"tag-sports","28":"tag-sports-news","29":"tag-ward"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114781894086903453","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}