Chris Ballard has been the general manager of the Indianapolis Colts since 2017. His teams have made the postseason in just nine seasons in charge. They have not been to the playoffs since 2020. His teams have never won the division. His teams have never finished in last place. They have been a textbook depiction of mediocrity.
But they are not mediocre because Ballard acquires mediocre players. He has actually shown an excellent eye for talent. Sometimes. The GM has tended to hit it out of the park or else strike out swinging with virtually every pick. He has a top-heavy team of stars with gaping roster holes and little depth. Fortunately, in right tackle Jalen Travis, Ballard appears to have hit another home run.
Or maybe it’s just a solid double in the gap. Too early to say, really. Travis started just the sixth game of his young career last week when the Colts lost to Kansas City. Travis has never started in a game the Colts went on to win. But that is hardly the fault of the mammoth tackle chosen by Ballard out of Iowa State in the fourth round of the 2024 draft.
Jalen Travis looks like the next great Indianapolis Colts offensive lineman
This year, Travis is replacing one of Ballard’s first excellent offensive line draft picks. In 2018, the GM’s second year in charge, he snagged future Hall of Famer Quenton Nelson in the first round. He came back in the second with Braden Smith.
Those players essentially locked down left guard and right tackle for the better part of a decade. (In between, he chose linebacker Shaq Leonard – don’t ever forget that Chris Ballard has made some sensational draft picks for the Colts.)
Smith left this offseason via free agency. Ballard seemed content to let him walk because he knew Travis was waiting in the wings. He saw Travis at the end of last season when he filled in for Smith and more than held his own. He even shifted to the left side for one game when Bernhard Raimann was hurt and didn’t miss a beat.
Through two games this year, Jalen Travis is 19th among all NFL tackles according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required) grades. He is grading higher than the likes of Penei Sewell, Dion Dawkins, and Kolton Miller.
He is also graded higher than Armand Membou and Kelvin Banks, tackles who went in the first round of the 2025 draft. Travis was chosen more than 100 picks later, in the fourth round. He was the 11th offensive tackle selected. As I write this, he is currently graded as the third-best in the class.
Were you to design a tackle in the lab, you might come up with Jalen Travis. He stands just under 6’8” with arms that measure almost 35 inches. He weighs 339 pounds but has the agility to post a respectable short shuttle time and the leg drive to post a vertical jump score that would not look too bad for a receiver.
Smart? Travis graduated from Princeton before playing his final season at Iowa State. His degree is in anthropology.
Of course, none of that means anything if he can’t play. But Jalen Travis can play. Through two games this year, he has allowed two pressures and zero sacks in 70 pass sets. He has not committed a penalty. To put that in perspective, left tackle Bernhard Raimann has given up six pressures. Travis has generally been solid in both pass protection and run blocking.
He will have a difficult task in Week 3 as the Colts host Will Anderson Jr., Danielle Hunter, and the Houston Texans. Travis’s toughest game last season came in Week 18 against these same Texans. He surrendered his only sack of the year and allowed four pressures … also his season high. It will give us all an excellent read on how far he has come.
Line coach Tony Sparano, among the best in the business, remains very high on his new right tackle. He saw just how good Travis could be last season. “This is a tough, smart, physical dude that’s a better athlete than people give him credit for." With a coach like Sparano and a mentor like Quenton Nelson, Travis is primed for success.
Chris Ballard may have had trouble finding consistent quality at several positions. But the offensive line is not one of those places. It is the best unit on the team, and Jalen Travis has stepped right into a prominent role in his second season without the slightest letdown.
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