There is a disaster brewing in the middle of the Indianapolis Colts' defense. Don’t worry. I will not be harping on the utter black hole that is the current Colts linebacking situation. I’ve done that enough already. The fact is, teams have fielded successful defenses even when one position group is somewhat below par.
Linebacker projects to be a problem for Lou Anarumo’s squad heading into the 2026 season, but it is far from alone. Too many questions surround the entire middle of the Colts’ defense to get overly stressed about the inexperienced linebackers.
The old baseball adage about being strong in the middle of the field applies to every team sport I know. Defense begins in the middle, in the wide part of the field. In basketball and hockey, if you can’t keep opponents from crashing the basket or the net, it doesn’t matter how good your perimeter is. In football, if you can’t stop the run, it doesn’t really matter how good your secondary is.
Indianapolis Colts appear to have abandoned a core defensive principle
Start up front with the Colts. The heart of the defense for the last six seasons has been the defensive tackle tandem of DeForest Buckner and Grover Stewart. Both are well past 30 now, entering their eleventh and tenth seasons respectively. Stewart’s numbers dropped precipitously last year, and his best days may be behind him.
Buckner remains a force, but he has missed more than a third of Indy’s games in the past two seasons. The neck injury, which cost him several key games late last year, reportedly had him contemplating retirement.
Aging interior linemen is a fact of life in the NFL. The normal way to prepare for it is to groom younger successors. Here’s who the Colts have in that successor role. Adetomiwa Adebawore and Colby Wooden.
Both players have shown flashes, but neither inspires great confidence. Adebawore played a backup role for the Colts last year, and Wooden – on whom the Colts appear to be very high – was a rotational part of Green Bay’s interior last season.
They recorded grades of 49.8 and 50.6 on Pro Football Focus (subscription required). If you are unfamiliar with that grading system, those are well below average.
What makes Chris Ballard’s roster moves especially confounding is the free agents he chose to sign at defensive tackle. Both Jerry Tillery and Derrick Nnadi are older players on the downside of their relatively modest careers.
In backup roles last year, both recorded PFF grades that were even lower than those of Adebawore and Wooden. It is very hard to see how the Colts' interior line – with both starters another year older and without Neville Gallimore – is any better than it was last year.
And last year, it was not very good.
We’ll skip over the oft-discussed linebackers, other than to say this. The Colts have just one current linebacker who played more than 10 defensive snaps in 2025. I’m going to pause for a moment to let that sink in…
BTW – the player who did actually play on defense last year – free agent signee Akeem Davis-Gaither – had a PFF grade of 49.9.  That placed him 71st out of 88 qualified linebackers in 2025.
On to safety, where Nick Cross was a solid run defender last year, finishing second on the team in tackles with 120. (Oh, for the record – the Colts had three players eclipse the 100 tackle mark in 2025. None remain with the club.) Anarumo still has a very good deep safety in Cam Bynum at the back end. But he does not tend to play near the line.
Apart from Bynum, the only safety on the roster right now who registered a PFF grade above 60 last year is Daniel Scott, who has played a total of 13 defensive snaps in his three-year, injury-plagued career.
Ballard’s major free agent signing, Juanyeh Thomas, scored an average of 60 in a limited role with the Cowboys last year. That’s the same Dallas Cowboys team that surrendered the most points and third most yards in the league. Thomas was a backup. No other safety on the Colts managed a PFF grade above 50 last season.
What is going on here? There is still some time to tinker, and the draft is looming. But unless Ballard pulls several rabbits out of his hat, is there anything to stop teams from simply pounding the ball at an undermanned Colts’ defense all season long?
If DeForest Buckner overcomes the injuries that have slowed him in recent years – if Grover Stewart has a bounce-back season at 33 – if one or two linebackers take giant steps forward – if Juanyeh Thomas and/or Hunter Wohlers establish themselves as quality NFL starters ….
There are a lot of ifs involved in merely getting the Colts’ defense back to respectability.
Chris Ballard mortgaged his future by acquiring an elite perimeter cornerback last year. He gave up major assets to get Sauce Gardner despite already having Charvarius Ward, Kenny Moore, and Justin Walley in the fold. If he doesn’t do something to address the middle of the defense, I doubt many teams will feel the need to challenge the Colts’ quality cornerbacks in 2026.