As the Colts 2021 first round pick, and the 21st overall pick in that past year\u2019s class, Paye would ultimately start 74 games during his five seasons in Indianapolis, compiling 30.5 career sacks during that same span.<\/p>\n
He started 16 games for the Colts this past season, recording 39 tackles (15 solo), 6 tackles for loss, 4.0 sacks, 38 QB pressures, and a pass defensed. Per PFF, Paye earned a +59.0 overall grade, which was ranked as the 86th best among 115 total qualifying defensive edges, which his highest grade was his +65.8 run defense grade.<\/p>\n
The problem with Paye though, despite his prior first round pedigree and elite physical traits, is that he never became anything more with Indianapolis, than he was at the University of Michigan, as an impact run stopper.<\/p>\n
The Colts couldn\u2019t develop him much further as a pass rusher, and at 27-years-old, his calling card in the pros remains his ability to set the edge and hold his ground and crashing in on run defense, while offering a bit of pass rushing from the outside edge\u2014albeit nothing consistently impactful.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that Paye is a bad player by any means, as a serviceable run-stopping starter who also offers durability and high character. He just never lived up to his high draft billing with the Colts, especially when the Minnesota Vikings selected left tackle Christian Darrisaw in the first round right behind him (who I loved in that class!).<\/p>\n
Looking back at the Colts though, the two defensive ends they selected in the first and second rounds of the 2021 NFL Draft Class, Kwity Paye and Dayo Odeyingbo, didn\u2019t earn second contracts in Indianapolis and are no longer with the team. Yes, they garnered big money deals elsewhere, but how can you reasonably rationalize that as success stories\u2014when there were such little returns on their initial investments?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Colts 2021 first round pick, and the 21st overall pick in that past year\u2019s class, Paye…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":804475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[2005,7,2004,392,6523,2381,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-804474","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-colts","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-indianapolis","11":"tag-indianapolis-colts","12":"tag-indianapolis-colts-free-agency","13":"tag-indianapoliscolts","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116204887671153470","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804474","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=804474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/804475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}