7. Justin Walley, Tim Smith and Hunter Wohler can all fit what Lou Anarumo wants in his defense.<\/p>\n
New defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo built a roundly-respected reputation with the Cincinnati Bengals as a schematic mastermind when it comes to disguising and deploying a wide variety of coverages. Over the last four seasons, he called a healthy mix of Cover-1, Cover-2, Cover-3, Cover-4 and Cover-6, with plenty of wrinkles in each of those coverages.<\/p>\n
So what Minnesota cornerback Justin Walley said on Friday night, after the Colts drafted him, sounded exactly like what Anarumo would want out of a defensive back.<\/p>\n
“I’ve had the opportunity to play every single coverage you can play \u2014 man, Cover 2, invert 2, Cover 3, Cover 3 match, all types of simulated pressures,” Walley said. “I feel like I have experience in all those.”<\/p>\n
Walley was a four-year starter at Minnesota and played both outside corner and in the slot; he also said he feels comfortable playing safety if asked. He started 42 games and showcased good ball skills while playing all those different coverages, totaling 34 pass break-ups and seven interceptions.<\/p>\n
The Colts were not dissuaded by Walley’s size (he’s 5-foot-10 and 190 pounds, both under the 25th percentile for cornerbacks at the NFL Combine since 1999) and instead focused on his tape, competitiveness and speed (he ran a 4.40-second 40-yard dash at the combine while wearing a cast over his wrist).<\/p>\n
“He plays the game how we want to play,” area scout Tyler Hughes said. “He’s smart, tough, instinctive, takes the ball away. He’s going to come up in the run game and fill. He goes after the ball when he’s trying to tackle. Overall a complete player, aside from the size, is what we’re looking for and then the character on top of it \u2014 once he gets in the building, he’s a special individual and I think you’re going to see how tough he really is.”<\/p>\n
Alabama defensive tackle Tim Smith, the second of the Colts’ back-to-back sixth-round picks, is a pocket pusher with heavy hands and good strength on the interior. His ability to absorb guards and tackles to create lanes for back-seven players in run support or on blitzes made him an attractive target for the Colts later on Day 3.<\/p>\n
“I love the double teams,” Smith said. “I live for them.”<\/p>\n
The Colts’ scouts liked Smith \u2013 and so did their defensive coaches.<\/p>\n
“I could feel our defensive staff around the fifth round start circling because they were pretty driven to get Tim, as we were,” Ballard said. “We think he’s got a lot of upside.”<\/p>\n
Wisconsin linebacker Hunter Wohler played safety with the Badgers, but the Colts envision him as someone who could compete for playing time on defense as a dime linebacker \u2013 sort of a linebacker\/safety hybrid. Anarumo, as part of his “mad scientist” vision for a defense, will use dime packages (six defensive backs), which calls for versatility from those players on the back end.<\/p>\n
Walley, too, could fit into that equation as a part of Anarumo’s sub packages.<\/p>\n
“You’re going to see a lot more dime, you’ll see a lot more DB stuff,” Ballard said. “More DBs in the game, safeties and corners, whoever he’s got at his disposal. You’re going to see him playing a lot more on third down. … You’re going to see corners playing some dime roles and inside. Lou (Anarumo) is pretty creative with what he’s going to do.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"7. Justin Walley, Tim Smith and Hunter Wohler can all fit what Lou Anarumo wants in his defense.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6793,"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-6792","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\/114415274866486110","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6792","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=6792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}