{"id":862422,"date":"2026-04-09T16:12:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T16:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/862422\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T16:12:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T16:12:20","slug":"analyst-selects-biggest-draft-goal-for-indianapolis-colts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/862422\/","title":{"rendered":"Analyst selects ‘biggest draft goal’ for Indianapolis Colts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nick Shook of NFL.com recently highlighted the one goal that each team “must nail” in the 2026 NFL draft. For the Indianapolis Colts<\/a>, the choice was an easy one — Chris Ballard must address the linebacker position.<\/p>\n

“Akeem Davis-Gaither<\/a> arrives via free agency and is projected to line up alongside Austin Ajiake<\/a>, a former undrafted free agent who played just 14 percent of their defensive snaps last season,” Shook wrote. “The second round is a perfect place to find some linebacking talent (Jacob Rodriguez<\/a>, Jake Golday<\/a>) and it’s is where GM Chris Ballard should zero in.”<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Even with the addition of Akeem Davis-Gaither in free agency, the Colts<\/a> are very short on experience at linebacker. The next most experienced player on the roster at linebacker is Jaylon Carlies, who has played 242 career snaps — most of which came in 2024.<\/p>\n

Depth is needed, and more competition for playing time is needed. You name it, the Colts<\/a> need it at linebacker. This is a position where multiple additions need to be made.<\/p>\n

Having Cam Bynum at safety, a very strong cornerback unit, and Lou Anarumo’s more disguise-heavy scheme can help take some of the burden off the linebacker position, but as of now, this is a unit that is a major roster hole and could be picked on by opponents.<\/p>\n

Even once the draft is done, Ballard shouldn’t rule out making a veteran free agent addition to round out the depth chart and provide some needed stability to this unit.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Colts Wire: 2026 NFL draft: Linebacker named key goal Colts must hit on<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nick Shook of NFL.com recently highlighted the one goal that each team “must nail” in the 2026 NFL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":837117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[4955,7524,23243,5422,2005,7,2004,392,2381,35794,5000,5641,6,9140,2821],"class_list":{"0":"post-862422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-2026-nfl-draft","9":"tag-akeem-davis-gaither","10":"tag-austin-ajiake","11":"tag-chris-ballard","12":"tag-colts","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-indianapolis","15":"tag-indianapolis-colts","16":"tag-indianapoliscolts","17":"tag-jacob-rodriguez","18":"tag-jaylon-carlies","19":"tag-linebacker-position","20":"tag-nfl","21":"tag-nick-shook","22":"tag-undrafted-free-agent"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116375633490145145","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862422","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=862422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}