Colts Potential Starters: Rookie Safety Clayton Geathers

The Indianapolis Colts headed into the offseason with a glaring need at the safety position. To address the hole on the roster, the Colts signed free agent Dwight Lowery and drafted Clayton Geathers in the fourth round.

One of these two players will more than likely be starting this season alongside Mike Adams.

According to a recent post by Mike Wells at ESPN, that could easily be less experienced Geathers. The former UCF safety took reps with the first team defense during OTAs and the coaches spoke very highly of his abilities on the field.

"“He’s going to be one of those guys that in today’s football you can play inside as a dime (linebacker) and get faster, get more speed on the field and matchup with the tight ends that we’ve got to cover now, the backs out of the backfield and things like that,” Pagano said. “He’s going to contribute, not only on defense, but he should be an outstanding special teamer as well.”"

There isn’t anything concrete in that statement by coach Chuck Pagano, but it is clear that they are putting some defensive packaged together to get Geathers on the field. At the very least, he’ll be an impact player on special teams.

At 6-2 and 218 pounds, Geathers is by far the biggest safety on the roster and fits the mold of an “in-the-box” type of player. What’s interesting is that he rarely lined up close to the line while in college. Here’s what Pro Football Focus had to say after breaking down his film:

"Lined up as a deep safety on 83% of his snaps as a Senior with the rest of his snaps spent equally between box safety and slot corner. Was rarely used there, but Geathers has the size (6-foot-2, 218 pounds) and physical abilities that project to a box safety. A bit of an early selection given his poor performance in the Senior Bowl and against power five competition where he allowed over 100 yards against Penn State alone. Missed 17 tackles in 102 opportunities."

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Geathers has the range and speed to play deep, but the size to stop the run making him more versatile (at least physically) than Adams (5-10 and 195 pounds) and Lowery (6-1 and 185 pounds). Given his size and ability, it’s easy to make a comparison to former Colts linebacker

Cato June

who switched from playing safety in college to weak side linebacker for Indianapolis. With the Colts now running a 3-4 defense, that sort of switch is highly unlikely but having him playing dime linebacker brings up the comparison.

Putting Geathers up against Lowery makes it clear that the position is up for grabs. Even despite his experience, Lowery isn’t a lock to be the starter. He’s been a solid, if somewhat inconsistent, player over the past few years and has been injury prone, only playing a full 16 games twice in his career.

Lowery’s past season with the Falcons was overall positive, but he was inconsistent overall (earning a +1.1 overall from PFF). At the very least, the Colts have an experienced backup on the roster who can still make an impact on special teams.

While it sounds like Geathers will be given every opportunity to start, that hasn’t always been the case with this team. They haven’t always rewarded play on the field (see: A.Q. Shipley and Sergio Brown). This might be a different situation as Lowery was brought in as a stop gap solution in the short term. It also helps that Ryan Grigson was the one to bring in both Lowery and Geathers.

Regardless, the Colts have two above average options at strong safety heading into 2015 and that is a distinct improvement over last season.

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