{"id":725787,"date":"2026-02-03T08:12:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T08:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/725787\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T08:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T08:12:18","slug":"what-was-chris-ballards-worst-signing-for-the-colts-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/725787\/","title":{"rendered":"What was Chris Ballard’s ‘worst’ signing for the Colts in 2025?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feb. 2, 2026, 3:09 p.m. ET<\/p>\n

What free agent signing by the Indianapolis Colts<\/a> would you consider the “worst” of the 2025 offseason?<\/p>\n

Bradley Locker of Pro Football Focus<\/a> recently answered that question for each NFL team. When it came to the Colts<\/a>, Locker selected cornerback Xavien Howard.<\/p>\n

“The former Dolphin allowed 195 yards and a 139.2 passer rating when targeted across the first four games of the season before retiring thereafter,” Locker wrote.<\/p>\n

Due to injuries at cornerback during training camp, Howard was a late addition to the Colts’ roster. From his time in Miami and experience playing in a variety of schemes, Howard was able to acclimate on the fly to Lou Anarumo’s scheme.<\/p>\n

Howard would get the start at cornerback for the Colts, but struggled with those opportunities, with quarterbacks often going right at him.<\/p>\n

Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n

In four games, Howard allowed a completion rate of 73% on 22 targets, giving up 12.2 yards per catch<\/a>. He had no ball production and was penalized four times.<\/p>\n

Howard then retired after the Colts’ Week 4 game against the LA Rams<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Colts didn’t get the production that they were hoping for from Howard, but this was always a low-risk, inexpensive deal that they signed him to. The fact that this was Locker’s pick for the Colts says that Chris Ballard had success in free agency last offseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 2, 2026, 3:09 p.m. ET What free agent signing by the Indianapolis Colts would you consider the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2059],"tags":[95878,2005,7,2004,392,2381,6,49915,95900,95882,95903,95924,95896,95888,95895,95899,95883,104785,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-725787","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-colts","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-indianapolis","12":"tag-indianapolis-colts","13":"tag-indianapoliscolts","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnflcolts","16":"tag-sstsncolts","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagindianapolis-colts","19":"tag-taglos-angeles-rams","20":"tag-tagnational-sports","21":"tag-tagnfl","22":"tag-tagnfl-hub","23":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","24":"tag-tagsports-news","25":"tag-tagxavien-howard","26":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116005695865692333","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725787","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=725787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}