Which Indianapolis Colts’ defender will lead the team in sacks in 2025? ESPN makes its projection.<\/p>\n
ESPN has released its\u00a02025 projections<\/a>, including the projected sack totals for each of the Indianapolis Colts’<\/a> defenders.<\/p>\n So, who is projected to lead the team in sacks this season?<\/p>\n Not surprisingly, ESPN<\/a> has DeForest Buckner logging the most sacks for the Colts<\/a> this year with 7.0.<\/p>\n Buckner continues to be not only a top defensive lineman on the Colts roster, but one of the most productive interior defenders in the NFL. Even with missing five games last season, Buckner was still second on the team in sacks with 6.5, and he was fourth on the team in quarterback pressures.<\/p>\n Compared league-wide to his position group, Buckner was seventh in\u00a0PFF’s pass rush win rate<\/a>\u00a0metric and 12th in pass rush productivity.<\/p>\n Second in sacks by ESPN’s projections was Kwity Paye, who has had steady sack production the last two seasons. In 2023, Paye finished second on the team in sacks with 8.5<\/a>, and he led the team last year in that category with 8.0.<\/p>\n Roughly half a sack behind Paye was Laiatu Latu<\/a> with 5.7 projected sacks. If I were making these predictions, I would have Latu ahead of Paye. If we look at last year’s numbers, Latu won his pass rush reps<\/a> at a much higher rate, and oftentimes, when there is that consistency, the production will follow.<\/p>\n Sacks are the end goal for every player, but not to be overlooked are pressures. Putting the quarterback under duress regularly can disrupt the timing of plays and lead to mistakes, even if a sack isn’t the end result.<\/p>\n The addition of Lou Anarumo as the defensive coordinator with his more aggressive scheme, along with there being more movement up front to create mismatches, should benefit the defensive line and give them more opportunities to get home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Which Indianapolis Colts’ defender will lead the team in sacks in 2025? ESPN makes its projection. ESPN has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[247,265,5006,2005,12157,12158,12,388,7,379,2004,392,2381,6654,4996,6657,667,6658,248,267,246,88,6,245,264,6655,818,817,829,9,266,819,776],"class_list":{"0":"post-76631","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-buckner","11":"tag-colts","12":"tag-deforest","13":"tag-deforest-buckner","14":"tag-espn","15":"tag-espn-inc","16":"tag-football","17":"tag-inc","18":"tag-indianapolis","19":"tag-indianapolis-colts","20":"tag-indianapoliscolts","21":"tag-kwity","22":"tag-kwity-paye","23":"tag-laiatu","24":"tag-laiatu-latu","25":"tag-latu","26":"tag-national","27":"tag-national-sports","28":"tag-neutral","29":"tag-news","30":"tag-nfl","31":"tag-overall","32":"tag-overall-neutral","33":"tag-paye","34":"tag-scores","35":"tag-sport","36":"tag-sport-scores-u0026-statistics","37":"tag-sports","38":"tag-sports-news","39":"tag-statistics","40":"tag-u0026"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114565573746365634","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76631","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=76631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}