2017 Positional Preview: Offensive Tackle
By Andrew Ites
The Indianapolis Colts’ offensive line has been the subject of much discussion as Andrew Luck has taken a beating during his entire career.
The Colts have consistently ranked near the top of the NFL in sacks allowed, and they continued that trend in 2016 with the league’s fifth-highest total in that category. Indianapolis has invested a ton of draft capital into their offensive line over the past few drafts, and they hope to see their investment pay off soon.
One of those high draft picks was spent on left tackle Anthony Castonzo, who was the 22nd overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft. Castonzo has been a solid player ever since he came into the league, but he has developed into one of the league’s better offensive tackles over his past three seasons.
Castonzo has also been extremely durable during his career with the Colts. After missing four games in his rookie season, he has started all 16 games in four out of the last five years.
The right tackle position is a bit of a question mark for the Colts as Le’Raven Clark manned the position during OTA’s. Clark struggled in pass protection playing in eight games and starting three during his rookie season, but the Colts would love their 2016 third round pick to develop into a serviceable starter as the team website described the starting right tackle spot as “his spot to lose come camp”.
Indianapolis drafted Zach Banner, an offensive tackle out of USC, with a fourth round pick in this year’s draft. Banner is an absolute mountain of a man at 6′ 8″ and 353 pounds, and he’s weighed as much as 385 pounds in college.
Banner needs to improve his pass protection to become an NFL starter, but a strong performance in training camp could earn him some playing time.
Andrew Luck can be confident with Anthony Castonzo protecting his blind side, but right tackle is a concerning position heading into training camp.
In case you missed it, here are the other 2017 positional previews: