Insider: How GM Chris Ballard views Colts offseason needs (other than quarterback)

[JAFF]

https://www.indystar.com/story/sport...n/69935639007/

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. INDIANAPOLIS — Everything’s about the quarterback in Indianapolis right now.

With good reason.

Four seasons spent wandering in the quarterback wilderness after Andrew Luck’s shocking retirement finally crushed the Colts last season, leading to turmoil, a head coaching change and Indianapolis finally holding the kind of draft pick, No. 4 overall, that can be used to select one of the top quarterbacks in the draft.

Doyel:Colts sure do sound like they want Alabama's Bryce Young

With that in mind, more than half of the questions lobbed at new Colts head coach Shane Steichen and long-time general manager Chris Ballard were about quarterbacks at this week’s NFL scouting combine, where Alabama’s Bryce Young, Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud, Kentucky’s Will Levis and Florida’s Anthony Richardson take center stage this weekend.


Those four quarterbacks will dominate the conversation for the next couple of months.

But the Colts have plenty of work to do on the rest of the roster, and a lot of that work will take place in the next couple of weeks, long before Indianapolis selects its franchise quarterback of the future.


The way Indianapolis finished last season, collapsing in the second half of the season because of the NFL’s worst offense, suggests that the quarterback position isn’t the only spot that needs an upgrade on that side of the ball, although Colts general manager Chris Ballard pushed back on that narrative on Wednesday.

“I know everybody thinks we don’t have any players, and that’s a good thing, I want that narrative to keep driving down,” Ballard said. “I still think (Jonathan) Taylor’s a really good player, I still think Quenton Nelson’s a really good player, really like our tight end group, I think we’ve got two really good wideouts, I still think Braden Smith is a really good freaking player.”

Potential departures in free agency will likely add needs on the defensive side of the ball, and the possibility remains that Indianapolis opens up even more holes by releasing veterans in to open up salary cap space.

The Colts are currently projected to have a little more than $12 million in space when the new league year opens, but that number could rise significantly with the likely releases of quarterback Matt Ryan ($17-plus million in savings) and quarterback Nick Foles ($2.1 million in savings).



Even more money could be opened up if the Colts moved on from veterans like center Ryan Kelly ($7.875 million in savings) or cornerback Kenny Moore II ($8.16 million), who didn’t play up to their standards last season.

Ballard deflected a question Wednesday about the possibility of releasing or trading veterans to create space.

“We’ll work through that,” Ballard said. “And even though they’re vets, they’ve been great Colts, so we’ll work through that over the next week or two.”

Whatever the Colts do, there are plenty of moves that have to be made in the next couple of months, before and after Indianapolis drafts its quarterback of the future. With that in mind, here’s Ballard’s assessment of the rest of the roster’s issues.

Offensive line

The highest-paid offensive line in the NFL last season ended up sinking the Colts.


Ballard took a pair of big personnel risks in replacing starters at left tackle and right guard, promoting backups Matt Pryor and Danny Pinter without adding much in the way of immediate competition, and he’s admitted since then that those mistakes ultimately lit the fire that consumed Indianapolis last season.

Pryor is a free agent, and Pinter looks like he’s better suited to center as he heads into the final year of his rookie deal. The two men who took over for them, rookie left tackle Bernhard Raimann and second-year guard Will Fries, impressed the Colts down the stretch.

Indianapolis has made it clear that it believes Raimann, a third-round pick last year, has the raw tools and the work ethic to be the left tackle of the future, even though his growing pains led to nine sacks last season, according to Sports Info Solutions.

“We had a young left tackle, we had a new starting right guard,” Ballard said. “As a group, it was valuable experience for those young guys. We need our best players to play to their potential, and we need those guys to continue to improve.”


Nelson has repeatedly expressed his disappointment with the way he played last season, and Smith finally emerged from the injury-produced fog that plagued him for a year and a half.

But it doesn’t sound like the Colts are likely to make the same mistake, putting all of their eggs into unproven baskets, again. Whoever Indianapolis drafts is going to need protection to develop, and Ballard committed to rebuilding the depth up front.

“We’ll continue to look and add,” Ballard said. “That is an area … it guts me. When you can’t block people, it’s hard to win, and that’s an area we’ll make sure we have enough competition and enough depth here moving forward where we’ll be good up front.”

Running back

The Colts are approaching a critical decision with Jonathan Taylor.

The team’s best offensive weapon, still only one year removed from being a unanimous first team All-Pro selection, struggled through a season plagued by a high ankle sprain, an injury that forced him to have surgery this offseason.


But Taylor has rushed for 3,841 yards and 33 touchdowns in three seasons, and the Colts have seen him come close to carrying the team to the playoffs when he’s healthy. With that in mind, Ballard has indicated a couple of times this offseason that he’s willing to sign Taylor to a big-money second contract as the running back heads into the final year of his rookie deal, even though handing out contracts to running backs has become contentious.

“I think Jonathan Taylor can play in any scheme,” Ballard said.

Wide receiver

Indianapolis believes it has two building blocks at wide receiver.

Michael Pittman Jr. has 187 catches for 2,007 yards over the last two seasons, and former second-round pick Alec Pierce is coming off a promising rookie season that produced 41 catches for 593 yards and two touchdowns, slightly better numbers than the ones Pittman Jr. put up in his rookie season in Indianapolis.


Beyond those two players, there is uncertainty. Former second-round pick Parris Campbell is a free agent after catching 63 passes for 623 yards and three touchdowns last season, and the team’s No. 4 receiver, Ashton Dulin, is also a free agent, part of a weak wide receiver class league-wide that could drive up the prices for a player like Campbell.

“We like both of those guys, and we think both of them have really bright futures,” Ballard said. “But there’s no question it’s a place we need to add some depth.”

Defensive end

Ballard believes the Colts have two rising forces in Kwity Paye and Dayo Odeyingbo, the pair of 2021 draft picks who made strides as pass rushers last season. Paye posted six sacks and 29 quarterback pressures despite battling injuries, and Odeyingbo came on late, ending up with five sacks and 28 quarterback pressures.

Drafted together to anchor the defensive line on the edge, it sounds like Paye and Odeyingbo have given the Colts reason for optimism outside the team’s talented interior duo of DeForest Buckner and Grover Stewart.


“Really like how Kwity and Dayo came on,” Ballard said. “I do think that those two kids, they’re young players and they’re starting to come on.”

But Ballard has always talked about, and typically come up short, of building the kind of depth that would give the Colts the wave of pass rushers, and Indianapolis has decisions to make at defensive end due to free agency.

Yannick Ngakoue, the defensive end the Colts landed in the Rock Ya-Sin trade last year, is a free agent after leading Indianapolis with 9.5 sacks, but he’s a tough case. Ngakoue led the team in sacks, but he failed to be the difference-maker the Colts needed to take pressure off Buckner, who finished with a team-leading 52 pressures, 11 more than Ngakoue’s 41, and was a far more consistent force.

Indianapolis also has a decision to make on veteran defensive end Tyquan Lewis, the former second-round pick who has often been a force for the Colts but is a free agent for the second consecutive year coming off a patellar tendon tear


“Yannick ended up having a really good year for us, and it was great to have him here in Indy,” Ballard said. “We’ll see what happens going forward, but we’ll continue to always try to have eight, nine defensive linemen that we can roll in and out.”

Linebacker

The team’s No. 2 and No. 8 tacklers, Bobby Okereke and E.J. Speed, are free agents at a position where Ballard has routinely been able to find starting-caliber players in the draft.

Both could be moving on, considering the emergence of Zaire Franklin and the team’s hopeful return of Shaquille Leonard, who underwent a second surgery in December to correct a nerve issue in his back that has plagued him for several seasons and limited Leonard to just 74 snaps last season.

If Leonard’s back at full strength in 2023, he’d form a formidable duo with Franklin, and the Colts might have to make some additions, either in the draft or free agency, to take over if Okereke and Speed sign elsewhere.


“It is different, because we’ve made progress, and he’s made progress, but it’s a day by day thing, and he just continues to work through it,” Ballard said. “We’ll hope for the best. I know he’s working hard and doing everything he can to get back right.”

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