{"id":34045,"date":"2025-05-08T15:40:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T15:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/34045\/"},"modified":"2025-05-08T15:40:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T15:40:11","slug":"how-colts-gm-chris-ballard-views-tight-end-offensive-line-defensive-line-and-quarterback-positions-ahead-of-2025-nfl-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/34045\/","title":{"rendered":"How Colts GM Chris Ballard views tight end, offensive line, defensive line and quarterback positions ahead of 2025 NFL Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pre-draft press conferences are exercises in searching for breadcrumbs outside a closed bakery. No general manager is going to give away his team’s draft board; any bit of information that leaks out at this stage of the pre-draft process can and will be used by 31 other teams.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Colts general manager Chris Ballard held his annual pre-draft press conference, and as usual, he provided some context for this week’s NFL Draft \u2013 but no specifics. We won’t know any specifics until each of the seven picks the Colts currently hold are announced later this week.<\/p>\n

Maybe a better way to put it is Ballard did not rule anything out from the start of Round 1 on Thursday through the end of Round 7 on Saturday.<\/p>\n

“Whether we’re at 14, whether we’re at 10, whether we’re at 25,” Ballard said, “we will have a player we like that will be good for the Colts that we will take.”<\/p>\n

With that in mind, though, there were a few specific positions Ballard was asked about on Monday that are worth digging into:<\/p>\n

A majority of the mock drafts we’ve collected here at Colts.com<\/a> have predicted the Colts will take a tight end \u2013 either Penn State’s Tyler Warren or Michigan’s Colston Loveland \u2013 with the No. 14 overall pick on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Ballard on Monday reiterated a point he’s made at various points this offseason: He’d like to find a tight end who can do everything \u2013 block in the run game and catch in the passing game \u2013 but that’s easier said than done.<\/p>\n

“That’s to me the hard one to find,” Ballard said, “… to be able to play on all three downs, to be able to be functional in the run game to where you don’t necessarily know it’s always a pass when he’s in the game, and then to be able to finish and make plays at critical times and have him give the quarterback an option in the middle of the field.”<\/p>\n

As for whether the Colts believe there’s a player who fits that description in the first round who will be available when they pick Thursday night \u2013 well, we’ll figure that out in a few days. But Ballard did stress this year’s tight end class is deep, and based on recent history, teams have found those difference-making tight ends at various points during a given draft.<\/p>\n

“It’s a really good class, and I think at every level, but it’s a good class,” Ballard said. “The one thing \u2013 it was funny when \u2013 if you look at some of the better tight ends in this league, they come from everywhere. (Travis) Kelce was a (third-round pick), (Mark) Andrews was a (third-round pick),, (George) Kittle was a (fifth-round pick), like they come from every \u2013 (Brock) Bowers was a (first-round pick) last year. They come from everywhere. But it’s a good class and we think there’s some good depth in this class.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pre-draft press conferences are exercises in searching for breadcrumbs outside a closed bakery. No general manager is going…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2059],"tags":[2005,19,198,697,7,2004,392,2381,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-34045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-colts","9":"tag-draft","10":"tag-featured","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-indianapolis","14":"tag-indianapolis-colts","15":"tag-indianapoliscolts","16":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114472971504567882","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34045","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=34045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}