Sometimes you know the answer before the question is even asked. That’s definitely true when it comes to the post-Andrew Luck Indianapolis Colts.
Josh Edwards, of CBSSports.com, recently graded all 32 NFL teams’ 2025 draft classes. See if you can guess where he placed Chris Ballard’s rookie class. I’ll give you a plus/minus of one. Guess within one spot of the actual answer, and you win.
Before I reveal the answer, let me remind you of who Ballard chose last year. He had eight picks, one in every round and an extra sixth-rounder. Tyler Warren was first. He went defense with the next two – JT Tuimoloau and Justin Walley. Back to offense for Jalen Travis, DJ Giddens, and Riley Leonard, before finishing with two more defenders – Tim Smith and Hunter Wohler.
Colts 2025 draft grade says a lot about where the franchise is
Here’s a quick recap of how the class performed in their rookie seasons. Warren was outstanding, immediately becoming an integral part of a very potent offense. He played 899 snaps in the season.
The other seven players totaled a combined snap count (excluding special teams) of 730. Two were injured. One was on the practice squad all season. The others served as rotational or depth pieces.
As a whole, that’s not terrible. Warren counts for a lot. At the bottom of Edwards’ list were teams that had no real impact rookies – or at least none as productive as Warren. Still, you’d hope to hit on more than one player in an eight-pick draft, and as of today, we don’t know if Ballard did.
Walley and Wohler looked promising in their very brief auditions. The glass-half-full prognosis has both returning from injury and significantly upgrading Indy’s secondary.
Jalen Travis looked very good as a replacement swing tackle. We’ll see just what Ballard and Shane Steichen think of him when free agency opens. Ideally, they do not attempt to re-sign Braden Smith or any other veteran right tackle because they trust Travis to take over that role.
Those are the potential hits based on scant evidence from 2025. On the other side of the ledger…
Tuimoloau was a major disappointment. The Colts needed pass pressure, and a second-round draft pick should have at least become part of a rotation on the edge. He did not. But he should get a chance to step up in his second season. Time will tell.
Smith was a practice-squader. Par for the course for a late sixth-round pick.
On offense, Giddens didn’t show much to inspire confidence and was quickly bypassed on the depth chart by Ameer Abdullah, a veteran with no real future on the Colts. Leonard was supposed to be a third-string developmental QB.
Anthony Richardson’s injury pushed him into the backup role, where he too was supplanted by a 44-year old who hadn’t played football in five years. Perhaps not an indictment on Leonard, but certainly not an endorsement either.
On the whole, I think we can say Warren and perhaps Travis look like solid additions. Tuimoloau, Leonard, and Giddens carry major questions, and the rest are complete unknowns.
So back to the question. Where do the Colts rank?
Without thinking about it for more than a few seconds, I guessed 16th. Edwards had them at 17. Based on my plus/minus one, I win.
The real story here isn’t where Warren et. al. should rank. The real story is we all knew that the Colts were in the middle. Just below the midpoint, in fact. That is the identity of the Indianapolis Colts under Chris Ballard and post-Andrew Luck. They seem forever stuck in the middle – the poster child for mediocrity.
In seven seasons without Luck, Indianapolis is 56-60. Oh, and they have a tie, because, well, that’s what mediocre teams do. They had one good year (2020) and one bad year (2022). Everything else – dead center.
So, of course, their 2025 draft class finished just below the midpoint. That’s their current identity. They have some good players. Good enough to tantalize. Not good enough to win when it matters. Chris Ballard and Shane Steichen are not bums, like disappointed fans may like to believe. They know football and make some good calls.
But neither has proven to be any more than that. In the highly competitive world of the NFL, just being pretty good at your job doesn’t get you far. Well, actually, we know where it gets you. It gets you smack dab in the middle.
Super Bowl LX featured two teams that got to the championship level by taking two different paths. New England tanked for a few seasons, blew everything up, brought in a new coach, and revamped their roster. It worked.
Seattle’s journey looks much more like the Colts of late. Hover around the middle and then take a major step forward. But they were willing to do something Indianapolis has been unwilling to try thus far. They fired their legendary coach and traded their greatest QB. Then they jettisoned several of their most well-known players. They seemed stuck in that muddy middle, but they retooled on the fly and won a Super Bowl.
The lesson here seems simple. When you are stuck in mediocre-ville, you have to make some bold moves. Otherwise, you just stay stuck.