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Meet the Improbable Colts Defensive Backs Who Survived the Raiders
(By Nate Atkins)
https://www.indystar.com/story/sport...s/72022358007/
DaVante Adams caught the ball on a slant route in the fourth quarter, turned to barrel into the end zone and met a sandwich of Colts defenders few could see coming in a game like this.
Ronnie Harrison jolted into his left side, stepping up from a strong safety position the NFL had mostly decided he was done playing. Chris Lammons flew over the back from a nickel spot that was supposed to be Kenny Moore II’s, or maybe Nick Cross’, or possibly Tony Brown’s, but not his.
Cross approached from a free safety spot he sometimes plays and sometimes doesn’t, making his first start of 2023 in the second-to-last game of the season.
Add in rookies JuJu Brents and Jaylon Jones at the outside cornerback spots, and this was the secondary the Colts put on the field in a game against the Raiders that they needed badly to stay alive for the playoffs. That the team is in this spot, that these players are the ones with the burden and that they managed to win 23-20 over the Raiders on Sunday says everything about this 9-7 Colts team and the improbabilities it thrives through to be in the mix for something real.
“It’s anybody’s league,” Lammons said. “Somebody’s gotta step up at any given time.”
These are the young men who had to survive Sunday against a superstar in Adams, in a playoff-like game in a passing league. A three-time first-team All-Pro, Adams got his, ripping off 13 catches for 126 yards and two touchdowns. But he and the Raiders didn’t kill them, playing constantly from behind on a day when the Colts made him earn the yards and fall short of the rewards.
These are the stories of perseverance, of patience, of paying dues and punishments in a league that doesn’t often wait around.
Aside from Brents, Cross was the one starter who was drafted to be here and doing this, in one way or another. When the Colts traded a future third-round pick to take him in the third round out of Maryland in 2022, they knew they were a year early on a 20-year-old athletic freak. But they chose to ride it out with the youngest player on any NFL roster by starting him at strong safety in the first two games of 2022.
But by the second half of that second start, the Colts were ready to pull the plug. Cross was just barely 21 years old, a soft-spoken rookie far from the only home he’s ever known in the Washington D.C. area. Tasked with being the communicator of the defense, the words got lodged somewhere in the throat and stayed there as he retreated to the bench and into the shadows of a lost season.
It took 15 months to resume a major role, but when Julian Blackmon went down with a shoulder injury against the Falcons last week, Cross stepped back in at strong safety and finished the game. With Blackmon headed to injured reserve with free agency looming, it appeared Cross had his old position back.
Except by Wednesday, the Colts wanted to keep him at free safety instead.
“This week was crazy,” Cross said. “When Kenny went down, (assistant defensive backs coach) Mike Mitchell was like, ‘Look, you have a lot on your plate. You’ve gotta be able to go out and communicate.’ It’s not only my first game starting, but I have to control the back end and make sure everybody’s in the right spots.”
Cross moved back to the free safety spot he’d been sharing reps at with Rodney Thomas II. The Colts benched Thomas, handing the reins to one of the most athletic players in the roster to play in single-high looks and offer the focus that at times escaped him as a rookie.
Cross finished with nine tackles and served as the last line of defense, as the Raiders did not have a play of more than 24 yards.
“He’s built like a little bulldog,” Harrison said of Cross. “He’s strong as hell. He can play the free or the strong (safety position) and he’s fast. He knows the game. He has good feet. He has good ball IQ. … He’s a good football player all-around.”
Blackmon’s injury created a leadership and playmaking void at strong safety, and they happened to have one on the roster who had 45 starts and five interceptions at that position.
Harrison last played a rep at safety in August, back when the Colts signed him after a long offseason in which no teams were calling him. Harrison received one tryout offer from the Ravens, but otherwise, the league had moved on from a five-year safety, and only the Colts were really interested, but now with the idea to transition to linebacker.
Harrison did so, begrudgingly at first, still believing he had what it takes to play the enforcing position on the back end of a defense. He got a shot to play after the Colts cut Shaquille Leonard and made him their starter in base defenses, but snaps in that set were limited. He flashed with two interceptions, including a pick-six against the Bengals. And now they were in need of a strong safety who could be loud and spread confidence to the players around him.
Harrison finished with five tackles against the Raiders. He wasn’t at the heart of many plays in coverage. But he fit his old position like duct tape, patching together a secondary that needed to avoid busts in coverage and in run fits, to make the Raiders earn every blade of grass.
“Let’s do it,” Harrison said he told his coaches when he heard their idea.
“Learning the linebacker position and then moving back to safety, it’s allowed me to know the defense a little bit more and then communicate it,” he said.
He and Cross have reflected each other in unique ways this season. In some ways, they are alike, down to the third-round draft status at strong safety. In others, they are the inverse, with Harrison louder and chock full of experience and Cross itching to get his first starts in the league.
Lammons' path was quite a bit different. Here was a player who had played four seasons in the league, who had won a Super Bowl as a special teamer with the Chiefs and who had risked losing it all when he was arrested on a felony battery charge for an incident in Las Vegas in which he and Alvin Kamara stomped on another man.
This summer was about rectifying those mistakes, as Lammons agreed to a settlement with the victim and then readied for a three-game suspension he hoped he’d have the chance to still serve. The Colts gave him that chance when they signed him, and they kept him on either the active roster or practice squad ever since. He’d only played in three Colts games prior to Sunday, and he'd never started a game in his career on defense, but he had to get ready when Moore showed up to Friday’s practice with back pain from a lingering injury that didn’t get better over the weekend.
“A lot of people said it was a risk," Lammons said of the Colts signing him, "but I truly believe these coaches, the GM and the owner had my back through it all. They believed in me. I believed in them.”
It’s taken belief and patience and survival for the Colts to make it through 16 games with a 9-7 record despite the injuries to Anthony Richardson, Jonathan Taylor, Braden Smith, Brents and now Blackmon and Moore.
A ragtag group of defensive backs lined up and survived. It was imperfect, as Aidan O’Connell threw for one yard short of 300. But every time the Colts needed a stop to protect a lead, they found a way.
“Everybody’s path is different, and everything happens for a reason,” Cross said. “Everybody’s gotta run their own race.”
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