Who will emerge as No. 1 target out of crowded Colts tight end room?

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INDIANAPOLIS — The race for roster spots at tight end might end up being the hottest battle of training camp at Grand Park.

The Colts have seven tight ends on the roster. None of the seven can be considered long shots, at least not by the standards of a 90-man roster, a squad typically constructed with a few undrafted players at each position who have never seen significant NFL action.

Mo Alie-Cox, Kylen Granson and Jelani Woods all played more than 330 snaps last season, and every one of them caught at least 19 passes. Indianapolis drafted Miami tight end Will Mallory in the fifth round in April; 2022 sixth-rounder Andrew Ogletree is on the mend after tearing his ACL in training camp a year ago. Pharoah Brown and Kaden Smith, the veterans Indianapolis added this offseason, have each played in at least 33 games and made at least 51 career catches.


The room’s crowded.

“Super competitive,” Alie-Cox said. “You’ve got to look forward to it, don’t get down and just build each other up along the way. You don’t want to not help somebody just because you’re competing with them.”

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Handicapping exactly what new head coach Shane Steichen will need from his tight ends isn’t easy.

The Colts are still in the early stages of installing an offense that will presumably be tailored around the strengths of the team’s first-round pick, Florida quarterback Anthony Richardson, a player whose otherworldly talents and youth will dictate the offense’s direction.


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Shortly after the team’s offseason program began, Steichen stepped into the Indianapolis tight ends room to stress the importance of the position in his offense.

“We’re going to get busy this year,” Woods remembers Steichen saying.


But it’s not easy to predict exactly what that means.


Under former Colts head coach Frank Reich, Indianapolis typically asked three tight ends to play at least 30% of the snaps, and in 2020 and 2021, two of those tight ends played roughly half the offensive snaps.

Eagles star Dallas Goedert played a much larger share of the snaps in Steichen’s two seasons as Philadelphia’s offensive coordinator. Goedert played nearly 70% of the snaps in 2021 — none of the other tight ends reached 30% playing time — and although Jack Stoll played nearly 50% of the snaps for the Eagles a year ago, Goedert was sidelined for five games with a shoulder injury.

That division of labor could change in Indianapolis.

Goedert’s status as one of the NFL’s best tight ends likely played a significant role in Philadelphia’s decision to keep him on the field.

If the Colts have a player like that on the current roster, the most likely candidate is 2022 third-rounder Jelani Woods, who made 25 catches for 312 yards and three touchdowns as a rookie.


Woods is the only Indianapolis tight end who’s shown he has the athleticism to stretch the field the way Goedert can. The Philadelphia star has averaged 13.1 yards per catch over the last three seasons; Woods averaged 12.5 as a rookie despite playing in a Colts offense that tied Tennessee for 26th in the NFL in passing plays of 20 yards or more.

The 6-7, 260-pounder with the 4.6 speed in the 40-yard dash spent his rookie season getting adjusted to a tight end position that is much more complex in the NFL than it is in college football.

“I was essentially learning two positions: the F and the Y,” Woods said. “They do completely different tasks on almost every play. It was a whirlwind starting off.”

In most NFL offenses, the Y tight end is the traditional tight end, the player who lines up with his hand on the ground next to the tackle, and the F tight end primarily stretches the field as a receiver. Focused on playing more than the 29% of snaps he played as a rookie, Woods has spent the offseason intent on improving his blocking, a skill that can get him on the field more often.


Especially if he learns to block in space.

“Watching film and stuff, it looks like the tight ends get the ball a lot in this offense,” Alie-Cox said. “But also, blocking a lot more on the perimeter. We haven’t done that as much in the past, but just from the early stages, I think we will be.”

Alie-Cox, at this point in his career, is established as a traditional Y tight end, a player the Colts value most as a blocker on the line of scrimmage. Granson took a step forward in his second season, leading the position in receptions last year by hauling in 31 catches, but he averaged 9.7 yards per reception.

Only time will tell if Steichen’s offense fits any of the Colts’ returning tight ends better than Reich’s, or if the scheme change opens up an opportunity for Mallory, Ogletree, Brown or Smith to upend the established order at the position.

“Iron sharpens iron,” Granson said. “We’re bouncing ideas off of each other, coaching each other up.”


The competition is only simmering right now.

When the team reports for training camp in July, the battle for roster spots and the No. 1 role will heat up in earnest.