Feb. 22, 2026, 7:51 a.m. ET<\/p>\n
One of the best in the NFL draft business, Daniel Jeremiah<\/a>, spoke with media members ahead of the NFL combine. One of the many topics discussed was the state of the defensive line position in this year’s draft class, which is a unit that the Indianapolis Colts<\/a> should prioritize adding to.<\/p>\n At defensive end specifically, Samson Ebukam, Kwity Paye, and Tyquan Lewis are all free agents. So building out the rotation this offseason will be a must.<\/p>\n But in addition to that, the Colts<\/a> need more consistent pass-rush production around Laiatu Latu. Or as Ballard said in his season-ending press conference, “more fuel” is needed up front.<\/p>\n As a unit, Indianapolis finished the season ranked 30th in\u00a0ESPN’s pass rush<\/a>\u00a0win rate metric. Latu was the only Colts’ defensive end to rank in the top 50 in quarterback pressures and in the top 65 in pass rush win rate, according to PFF<\/a>.<\/p>\n The good news for the Colts, who don’t have a first-round pick, is that there is a lot of edge rusher talent in this draft.<\/p>\n Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n “It’s another exciting class, with some of the strengths of this draft really being along the defensive line, particularly the edge rushers,” Jeremiah said Thursday, via Colts.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n As far as the defensive tackle position goes, this group isn’t as deep. So if Ballard wants to address this position in the draft and find immediate help, he may have to prioritize doing so as soon as he can.<\/p>\n “I would rank that wide receiver, corner, D-tackle in terms of depth,” Jeremiah said. “But it’s not it’s not in bad shape at defensive tackle, it’s just much, much deeper at the other two.”<\/p>\n Jeremiah continued, “Then the defensive tackles, it’s not as deep as the edge rusher group in this draft, but there’s some real intriguing guys…second round to fourth round I think is a nice little sweet spot there, you got some real big guys in there.”<\/p>\n Again, bolstering the depth behind DeForest Buckner and Grover Stewart is a need, but Ballard also needs to begin planning ahead at this position as well. While we don’t know what the future holds, Buckner and Stewart are both entering the final year of their respective deals. Buckner<\/a> will be 33 for the 2027 season, and Stewart<\/a> will be 34 for much of the year.<\/p>\n Although Ballard didn’t mention the defensive tackle position specifically, he did say there was a need this offseason to get younger and faster on defense — and defensive tackle is a position to which that sentiment could be applied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 22, 2026, 7:51 a.m. ET One of the best in the NFL draft business, Daniel Jeremiah, spoke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[95878,2005,7,2004,392,2381,6,49915,95900,95882,98100,95892,100487,95903,97373,97541,95896,95888,95895,95906,97372,95883,97375,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-770579","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-tagdeforest-buckner","19":"tag-tagespn-inc","20":"tag-taggrover-stewart","21":"tag-tagindianapolis-colts","22":"tag-tagkwity-paye","23":"tag-taglaiatu-latu","24":"tag-tagnational-sports","25":"tag-tagnfl","26":"tag-tagnfl-hub","27":"tag-tagoverall-positive","28":"tag-tagsamson-ebukam","29":"tag-tagsports-news","30":"tag-tagtyquan-lewis","31":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116118603934630157","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770579","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=770579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}