Feb. 13, 2026, 12:57 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
One of the best in the NFL draft business, Daniel Jeremiah, has some good news for the Indianapolis Colts<\/a>.<\/p>\n As Jeremiah continues to work through his draft evaluations, he recently shared that this is a good year to need edge rusher help — which the Colts<\/a> need a lot of.<\/p>\n “If you need an edge rusher, this is a good draft to double up,” Jeremiah posted<\/a>. “The depth of the class is impressive. I’ve got 10 guys worthy of a spot in top 50 players. There’s another layer of traitsy players beyond that group.”<\/p>\n The need for the Colts at this position is twofold. For starters, adding depth is a must with Samson Ebukam, Tyquan Lewis, and Kwity Paye all set to be free agents.<\/p>\n But in addition to that, as GM Chris Ballard put it during his season-ending press conference, “more fuel” is needed along the defensive front.<\/p>\n Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n As a collective unit, the Colts ranked 30th in ESPN’s<\/a> pass rush win rate metric last season.<\/p>\n Among all defensive ends, only Latu ranked in the top-50 last season in quarterback pressures, and he was the only Colts’ defensive end in the top-80 in PFF’s<\/a> pass-rush win rate.<\/p>\n Here are the top 10 defensive ends in this year’s draft from Mel Kiper’s big board<\/a>:<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0Rueben Bain Jr<\/a>., Miami (Fla.)2.\u00a0Keldric Faulk<\/a>, Auburn3.\u00a0Zion Young<\/a>, Missouri4.\u00a0Akheem Mesidor<\/a>, Miami (Fla.)5.\u00a0Dani Dennis-Sutton<\/a>, Penn State6.\u00a0Caden Curry<\/a>, Ohio State7.\u00a0LT Overton<\/a>, Alabama8.\u00a0Jack Pyburn<\/a>, LSU9.\u00a0Max Llewellyn<\/a>, Iowa10.\u00a0Vincent Anthony Jr<\/a>., Duke<\/p>\n The Colts do not own a first-round pick but have second and third-round selections. From the sounds of it, the opportunity to bolster the defensive end position at this point in the draft should exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 13, 2026, 12:57 p.m. ET One of the best in the NFL draft business, Daniel Jeremiah, has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[95878,2005,7,2004,392,2381,6,49915,95900,95882,95930,95892,95903,97373,97541,95896,95888,95895,95906,96948,97372,95883,97375,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-751084","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-tagbig-ten-conference-football","19":"tag-tagespn-inc","20":"tag-tagindianapolis-colts","21":"tag-tagkwity-paye","22":"tag-taglaiatu-latu","23":"tag-tagnational-sports","24":"tag-tagnfl","25":"tag-tagnfl-hub","26":"tag-tagoverall-positive","27":"tag-tagpenn-state-nittany-lions","28":"tag-tagsamson-ebukam","29":"tag-tagsports-news","30":"tag-tagtyquan-lewis","31":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116067816339274364","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751084","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=751084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}