Welcome to the Indianapolis Colts, Xavien Howard. General Manager Chris Ballard agreed to terms with veteran cornerback Xavien Howard early in the morning on August 18th, and the team gets some much-needed help in the often-lambasted cornerback department.
Now, were this 2019, this would be a league-altering signing and national news. In 2025? Not so much. Howard hasn't seen game action since he got hurt in 2023 with the Miami Dolphins. At his peak, this was a cornerback who was among the best ballhawks in the game, leading the league in interceptions in both 2017 and 2020.
Most recently, however, he played second fiddle to Jalen Ramsey in Miami before taking a year off from the league in 2024.
So, what version of Howard will the Colts be getting here? If Howard is able to turn back the clock and put some of his early career heroics on the field, a very good one. If not, he may just be another body in the cornerback room with a "Fragile: Made of Glass" label. In any case, let's look at an overview of the newest member of the Colts' career.
Xavien Howard could lock down the Indianapolis Colts' No. 2 cornerback role
While it might be naive to think that Howard could be better than new Colts CB1 Charvarius Ward, the cornerback room behind Ward is so thin after rookie CB Justin Walley's ACL tear that Howard has a legitimate chance to solidify himself as the second-best cornerback on the roster if he can return to even his 2023 form.
Xavien Howard is now a 32-year-old veteran corner who most see as over the hill. It is undeniable that he's in the twilight years of his playing career, but what kind of player was he in his prime?
Howard was drafted to the Miami Dolphins in the second round of the 2016 NFL Draft out of Baylor University. It wasn't long after that point that Howard started to cement himself as a player that never should've made it out of the first 32 selections.
Though he didn't stuff the stat sheet in his rookie year, only appearing in seven games and starting six, Howard broke out in a big way in his sophomore campaign, nabbing four picks throughout the year. In his third year, he led the league with seven interceptions, earning him a label as arguably the most productive ballhawk in the league.
However, the next season, Howard would only appear in five games, and although he still managed to reel in one interception, an issue that would become one of the defining features of his on-field career came to light: injury.
After this unfortunate season, Howard rebounded with a 10-interception campaign that landed him in DPOY talks, though he didn't take home the award. He followed that up with a stellar season in 2021, nabbing five picks in 16 games played, but 2022 would see Howard take a step back.
He played in fifteen games that year, but it seemed that he'd lost a step. The playmaking corner only brought in one interception the whole year. Howard was always a gambling corner, and when he was in his prime, that led to a big payoff with game-changing interceptions, so seeing him get burnt on a few occasions where he gambled and came out on the wrong end was acceptable.
However, now that he was no longer bringing in the interceptions to make up for the plays where he would get beaten badly, Howard lost a lot of his value. He never again attained the heights of his best seasons, and played in only 13 games in a disappointing 2023 outing.
Howard has always had good instincts, but in his last few years as a Dolphin he dealt with nagging injuries (that he would often play through to middling results) and dwindling athleticism.
However, that doesn't mean that the version of Xavien Howard that last saw in-game action is the version that the Colts are getting. Howard didn't sign with a team at all in 2024, giving his worn down body a chance to fully recover over an extended period of time for maybe the first time since the day he was drafted to the NFL.
Obviously, that year off might have just meant Howard has lost even more of a step, and if that's really the case then this signing will be inconsequential for the Colts. However, if the version of Xavien Howard that steps into the building as a Colt in 2025 is a rejuvenated jilted cornerback who is hungry to prove he still has something left in the tank, then the Colts cornerback room just got a whole lot better.
Time will tell which version of Xavien Howard the Colts are bringing in, but with any luck it's one that can rekindle some of the magic of his younger days.