Some Indianapolis Colts players get some love from the national media. Running back Jonathan Taylor and cornerback Sauce Gardner, for instance, are going to be ranked highly at their respective positions. Safety Cam Bynum, though? Not so much.
In a recent poll of NFL scouts, coaches, and executives of the best safeties in the league, Bynum is nowhere to be found. Not in the top 10, and that's fine. The Indy safety is good, but maybe not one of the ten best at his spot. But Bynum didn't even seem to garner a single vote.
That is simply wrong. Over his five-year career (four with the Minnesota Vikings and one season in Indy), the safety has been consistently good at every aspect of his job. Plus, his best season might have come last year.
Indianapolis Colts safety Cam Bynum fails to get the respect he deserves
He whiffed on just 6.1 percent of his tackle attempts, an elite number for a defensive back, had a quarterback rating allowed of only 66.3 (he gave up just one touchdown pass but had four interceptions), and his always-excellent run defense stayed as effective.
Bynum is just one of the better players at his spot in the NFL, but he is one of the more consistently high-performing ones, too. His brilliance with the Colts in 2025 is unlikely to change anytime soon, unless he gets injured. He will only turn 28 years old on July 19, and he should have several seasons left to play exceedingly well.
More specifically, he is a versatile safety who is good against the pass but a player the team can trust to play aggressively near the line of scrimmage. He missed on an extraordinarily low five tackle attempts last season, and never more than once in any game.
That kind of consistency is a gift to a defensive coordinator. He provides none of the worry that inside linebacker did for Lou Anarumo in 2025, for instance. That will be true in 2026, too.
Cam Bynum also isn't going to leave the Indianapolis Colts soon. He signed a four-year deal last offseason that will keep him in Indy through 2028. Overall, he could make as much as $60 million, but his average annual salary of $15 million is looking more like a steal with every new deal signed by a safety elsewhere.
Bynum is the 10th-highest-paid safety in the NFL with his annual salary, but new Chicago Bears safety Coby Bryant is just behind him at $13.33 million a season. Bryant has had only two years of playing well, and he might not be as successful with his new team as Bynum was with the Colts in 2025 and will be in the future.
In fact, the Indianapolis safety is just one reason the team's defense could be vastly improved this season. If players like Sauce Gardner and DeForest Buckner can stay healthy, and rookies such as CJ Allen can make an immediate impact, Anarumo's group could easily rank in the top half of the league. That should be enough to help Indy get to the playoffs.
Add us as a preferred source on Google