{"id":75151,"date":"2025-05-24T10:00:15","date_gmt":"2025-05-24T10:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/75151\/"},"modified":"2025-05-24T10:00:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T10:00:15","slug":"indianapolis-colts-s-nick-cross-named-most-underappreciated-on-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/75151\/","title":{"rendered":"Indianapolis Colts’ S Nick Cross named ‘most underappreciated’ on team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who would you consider the most underappreciated player for the Indianapolis Colts? Tom Blair of NFL .com made his selection.<\/p>\n

Who would you consider the most underappreciated player for the Indianapolis Colts<\/a> entering the 2025 NFL season?<\/p>\n

We’ve seen Bernhard Raimann selected before, but NFL.com’s Tom Blair<\/a> went in a different direction, picking safety Nick Cross.<\/p>\n

“Cross emerged as a capable starting safety,” wrote Blair. “The former 2022 third-round pick became the first Colts<\/a> player since secondary-mate\u00a0Kenny Moore<\/a>\u00a0in 2021 to finish a season with three-plus interceptions, at least one forced fumble and at least one sack. Cross also tied for the team lead in picks and ranked second in total tackles (146).”<\/p>\n

While the Colts’ defense had its issues during the 2024 season, one of the encouraging signs was the growth and development of Cross.<\/p>\n

After playing just over 400 defensive snaps over his first two seasons, with unknowns at the safety position going into 2024, Cross emerged over the summer and established himself as a steady presence, filling that strong safety role.<\/p>\n

Cross was very good down near the line of scrimmage, particularly against the run. According to PFF<\/a>, Cross totaled 140 tackles, ranked 14th in run defense grade, and was eighth among safeties in run stop rate.<\/p>\n

In coverage, Cross flashed his playmaking ability with three interceptions and two pass breakups. His reliability as a tackler also helped limit pass-catchers to 9.3 yards per reception.<\/p>\n

The next step for Cross will be building off last season’s performance. Helping him accomplish that will be the experience he gained in 2024 as a starter, along with playing Lou Anarumo’s defense, where the more disguise-heavy scheme has helped extract additional production out of the secondary.<\/p>\n

Also, playing next to a do-it-all safety like Cam Bynum can free up Cross to be put into positions where he can really excel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who would you consider the most underappreciated player for the Indianapolis Colts? Tom Blair of NFL .com made…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[247,265,7181,4990,5611,5610,1673,2005,5484,7,2004,392,2381,248,267,88,6,1132,4998,245,537,530,9696,9,266],"class_list":{"0":"post-75151","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-bernhard","11":"tag-bernhard-raimann","12":"tag-bynum","13":"tag-camryn","14":"tag-camryn-bynum","15":"tag-colts","16":"tag-cross","17":"tag-football","18":"tag-indianapolis","19":"tag-indianapolis-colts","20":"tag-indianapoliscolts","21":"tag-national","22":"tag-national-sports","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-nfl","25":"tag-nick","26":"tag-nick-cross","27":"tag-overall","28":"tag-overall-positive","29":"tag-positive","30":"tag-raimann","31":"tag-sports","32":"tag-sports-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114562231409427021","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75151","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=75151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}