{"id":876112,"date":"2026-04-27T14:21:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T14:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/876112\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T14:21:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T14:21:19","slug":"colts-2026-nfl-draft-gpa-experts-like-chris-ballards-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/876112\/","title":{"rendered":"Colts 2026 NFL draft GPA: Experts like Chris Ballard&#8217;s picks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Overall, NFL draft experts who graded each team&#8217;s 2026 NFL draft class thought highly of the selections made by the<a href=\"https:\/\/coltswire.usatoday.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Indianapolis Colts.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Indianapolis Colts.&quot;}\" class=\"link \"> Indianapolis Colts.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>At the conclusion of each NFL draft, Rene Bugner compiles the various post-draft grades for each team and calculates their grade point average. This year, 24 different evaluations made up each team&#8217;s respective GPA.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>So how did the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/indianapolis-colts\/338\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Colts;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Colts&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Colts<\/a>&#8216; draft class fare?<\/p>\n<p>Colts&#8217; 2026 NFL draft GPA ranked highly<\/p>\n<p>The Colts&#8217; draft GPA was a 3.12, which ranked as the 11th best in the NFL.<\/p>\n<p>Of the 24 evaluators, four gave the Colts an A- or higher. Only two gave the Colts a grade below a B-, with Indianapolis&#8217; worst grade being a C.<\/p>\n<p>The majority of the grades received by the Colts were in the B to B+ range.<\/p>\n<p>Carter Bahns of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/nfl\/draft\/news\/nfl-draft-2026-team-grades\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:CBS Sports;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;CBS Sports&quot;}\" class=\"link \">CBS Sports<\/a>, who gave the Colts an A-, had this to say about Chris Ballard&#8217;s class:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Colts addressed their defensive needs on Days 2 and 3 after watching from the sidelines on Thursday,&#8221; wrote Bahns. &#8220;That has to feel good for Lou Anarumo after his group put up some real stinkers in the second half of last season.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/coltswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/draft\/2026\/04\/25\/nfl-draft-grades-ranking-classes-2026\/89800559007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Nate Davis;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Nate Davis&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Nate Davis<\/a> of USA Today, who gave the Colts their lowest grade, a C, had this to say:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In a <a href=\"https:\/\/coltswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/columnist\/nate-davis\/2025\/11\/04\/sauce-gardner-jets-colts-nfl-trade-deadline-winners-and-losers\/87088972007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:win-now move made at least year\u2019s trade deadline;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;win-now move made at least year\u2019s trade deadline&quot;}\" class=\"link \">win-now move made at least year\u2019s trade deadline<\/a>, Indy surrendered this year\u2019s first-rounder (and next year\u2019s even more valuable one) to the <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/nfl\/teams\/ny-jets\/\" data-i13n=\"sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link\" data-ylk=\"slk:Jets;sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link;itc:0\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Jets&quot;,&quot;ySubModuleName&quot;:&quot;anchor_text&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jets<\/a> for CB <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/nfl\/players\/33959\/\" data-i13n=\"sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link\" data-ylk=\"slk:Sauce Gardner;sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link;itc:0\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Sauce Gardner&quot;,&quot;ySubModuleName&quot;:&quot;anchor_text&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sauce Gardner<\/a>, who \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/coltswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/columnist\/nate-davis\/2025\/11\/09\/sauce-gardner-colts-debut-daniel-jones-chris-ballard\/87183727007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:through no fault of his own really;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;through no fault of his own really&quot;}\" class=\"link \">through no fault of his own really<\/a> \u2013 wasn\u2019t able to help the cratering Colts win now in 2025. But if Gardner, who hasn\u2019t been the same player the past few years that he was earlier in his career, doesn\u2019t revert to All-Pro form \u2013 maybe even Deion Sanders form \u2013 history is not going to look kindly upon GM Chris Ballard\u2019s very expensive gambit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Colts&#8217; 2026 NFL draft class<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Pick 113: OL Jalen Farmer<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Pick 135: LB Bryce Boettcher<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Pick 156: DE George Gumbs<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Pick 237: RB Seth McGowan<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Colts Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/coltswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/colts\/2026\/04\/27\/colts-2026-nfl-draft-gpa-experts-like-chris-ballards-picks\/89818020007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Grading 2026 NFL draft: What is Colts&#039; GPA?;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Grading 2026 NFL draft&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Grading 2026 NFL draft: What is Colts&#8217; GPA?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Overall, NFL draft experts who graded each team&#8217;s 2026 NFL draft class thought highly of the selections made&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[5422,2005,44549,3990,3860,7,107406,2004,392,2381,226,6,7536],"class_list":["post-876112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indianapolis-colts","tag-chris-ballard","tag-colts","tag-deion-burks","tag-draft-class","tag-draft-grades","tag-football","tag-grade-point-average","tag-indianapolis","tag-indianapolis-colts","tag-indianapoliscolts","tag-jets","tag-nfl","tag-sauce-gardner"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116477118636022379","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876112","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=876112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}