The Indianapolis Colts have several young, talented players, and Bleacher Report has a surprising pick for the most promising building block in Indy.
Despite the fact that the Indianapolis Colts haven’t had much team success in recent years, the future is bright in Indy. The reason the future is bright is because the Colts have a lot of young talent. Indy has established young players like Jonathan Taylor and Michael Pittman Jr., and just added a draft class with several promising names like Anthony Richardson, Julius Brents, and Josh Downs.
With so much young talent, which player on Indy’s roster deserves the title of most promising building block. It’s tough to decide but Alex Ballentine of Bleacher Report recently tried to do so. Ballentine named the most promising building block for all 32 teams, but used a criteria to help decide on the names.
"For the sake of avoiding the obvious, we’re looking at players who are still on rookie contracts, haven’t received an extension and haven’t made the Pro Bowl. Players from this year’s draft class are also excluded because they haven’t shown anything on the field yet."Alex Ballentine
With these rules in place, Indy’s options were limited, so the name that Ballentine decided on for the Colts was defensive end Kwity Paye.
Kwity Paye named Colts most promising building block
If not for the criteria, the list would obviously look different. Even with these rules in place, a name like Michael Pittman Jr. was still available. However, Ballentine opted to go with Paye. Admitting that it was a close call between Paye and Pittman, Ballentine’s reasoning for choosing Paye was “because there's been less time for him to show us his ceiling.”
Ballentine explained that even while being derailed by injuries, Paye significantly improved from year one to year two. As a rookie, Kwity Paye played in 15 games and recorded 32 tackles, three for a loss, and four sacks. In just 12 games in his second season, Paye improved everything, recording 45 tackles, 10 for a loss, and six sacks.
Now, as he prepares for year three, Indianapolis will need him to stay healthy because the Colts are asking him to be the team’s top pass rusher. With Yannick Ngakoue gone, Paye will be the leader on the edge. It’s time for him to take the leap and become the disrupter that everyone has been predicting he will be. If that happens, Paye will certainly be one of Indy’s building blocks.