Colts mailbag: How can Jelani Woods and Drew Ogletree fit together? And what's up with Nick Cross?
If I put a dateline on this story as I’m typing it, it’d be somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. I’m on a plane from Washington, D.C., overnight to Frankfurt, Germany, where I’ll get to follow the Colts as they play the Patriots and engage in a rare international experience.
It’s Indianapolis’ final game before a much-needed bye week, and it’s also a sneaky big game if the Colts want to believe they’re still in the playoff hunt. Win this and they’ll be 5-5 with a two-game winning streak and a week to heal up injuries to players such as Josh Downs, Jelani Woods, JuJu Brents and Braden Smith. Lose and they’ll be 4-6, losers of four of five games and unable to beat the two-win Patriots, now likely tasked with winning six of their remaining seven games.
I’m not sure if the game play will teach us as much, as the Patriots are struggling almost as much as the Panthers were entering last week. But real teams take care of business, and it’s time to see if the Colts can go abroad to do that.
You have questions, and I tried to come up with some answers. (To get in on future mailbags, follow me @NateAtkins_, where I put out the call; or send longer questions to natkins@indystar.com.).
Let’s get to it:
Question: "How do you see our future TEs shaking out? Jelani Woods is super athletic, Kylen Granson is reliable, Drew Ogletree is a great blocker and good catcher, Will Mallory is intriguing. Do we trade one?" -- Chris Taylor via Twitter
Answer: It’s a great question and one I think the Colts are wondering about. They had set this season up to be an evaluation year for their younger position groups, and at tight end, the injuries to that position and to Anthony Richardson are making the evaluation harder.
The Colts are still high on Jelani Woods’ upside, given that he tested as the most athletic tight end prospect in history by Relative Athletic Score and showed that open-field speed last season, when he averaged 12.5 yards on 25 catches. What they still need to see is more consistency out of him as a receiver and more trust as a blocker, which is what he’d been working on by trimming some top weight. We just haven’t gotten to see any of that progress yet as he’s missed the first nine games with a hamstring injury.
The one revelation of this group so far is that Drew Ogletree is a real player. The Colts front office loved him as a sixth-round pick who took a unique route through two small schools to get here, and losing a year with an ACL tear stung, but he looks as ready now as he did in his first training camp. Without getting to see Woods this year, Ogletree has emerged as their best two-way tight end, and I feel confident that he’ll hold a starting role when others come back, too.
GO DEEPER: A fatherhood in football: How Drew Ogletree and his son are chasing NFL dreams together
Granson had some difficult timing with a brain injury that cost him a couple of games. He’s the experienced “move” tight end option, but he’ll enter a contract year next season.
The verdict is still out on Will Mallory long-term, but he’s been a useful backup to Granson and Ogletree.
For the future, I’d pencil Woods and Ogletree in as starters for next season, provided they are healthy. Mallory should stick around and could push Granson for playing time. I think it’s likely they carry four and these are the names as of right now.
Question: "What is going on with Nick Cross!?!" -- @TDominoATL via Twitter
Answer: This might be the question I’ve gotten the most this season, since Nick Cross is a second-year, third-round pick who has seen just 17 snaps for a struggling Colts secondary. So I spent a few weeks digging into the reasons why, plus how they can be optimistic despite this situation.
INSIDER: As Colts secondary injuries mount, why isn’t Nick Cross getting a chance to play?
To add to it, I would monitor the free safety spot for now and the strong safety and nickel spots for next season. The former has a starter in Rodney Thomas II that the Colts need to see more consistent coverage play out of. The latter two have players in contract years in Julian Blackmon and Kenny Moore II.
The Colts have said that there isn’t a spot to play Cross much right now, but that could change if they continue to want more out of the free spot. It will change if they want to let one of Moore or Blackmon walk and open the door for a third-year safety who will still only be 22 come next spring.
Question: "What are the chances Josh Downs is ready for Sunday?" -- Fogh via Twitter
Answer: We’ll see if Downs practices Friday in Germany, though it’s just a walk-through, and he missed the first two practices this week. With the bye week next week, I think the Colts will exercise more caution with Downs than they did last week, when they asked him to push through that pain to suit up against the Panthers, only to take him out after he caught just one pass for 10 yards.
Downs is a pretty important piece for Gardner Minshew and for the future of this team, as he's averaging a sublime 8.5 yards per target so far. So, like with Anthony Richardson and JuJu Brents, I think it’s time to treat him a little more carefully, given how much he needs that knee to be effective in his slot role.
Question: "Are you and/or Joel traveling to Germany?" -- Gonzoblümchen via Twitter
Answer: By the time you’re reading this, we will both be in Frankfurt. It'll be afternoon or evening there, and so we'll be trying to adjust our sleeping and eating schedules to take in a few days of football, food and sight-seeing.
It’s my first international game and my first time leaving North America. My family roots are split between Irish and German, so this has become a bucket-list item since the schedule came out. I’ve been soliciting tips from family all week in order to fit in, but I’ll really be a fish out of water.
So, check IndyStar.com for stories this weekend and your podcast feeds on Monday for a German-themed “First Impressions” edition of Cover 2. We’re getting to the game four hours early, so I’m trying to really bring it with the game-day observations this time.
FOR SUBSCRIBERS: Why Bernhard Raimann playing for Colts in Germany is impossible
Question: "Do you have any information on where the Colts will practice in Germany?" -- the_honeybadger007 via Twitter
Answer: The Colts will be practicing at Stadion am Bornheimer Hang, also known as PSD Bank Arena, or home of the Frankfurt Galaxy. They will conduct a light practice here at 5:40 p.m. local time Friday, which equates to 11:40 a.m. ET in the U.S.
The session is built to be light, partly because it's a Friday, partly because of a seven-hour plane trip and partly because of a six-hour time change. The Colts are staying up as much as they can throughout Friday in order to reset their body clocks to the local time here (which is what I will also be trying and hopefully not failing to do).
After the practice, we'll talk to Shane Steichen, Gardner Minshew and Bernhard Raimann. It'll obviously be a big moment for Raimann, who is from Austria and will have more than a dozen friends and family members at the game.
Check back here for stories from that and from the weekend in Frankfurt as a whole. It should be pretty fascinating to take in here on the ground. Now, I need some sausage and some sleep.
Contact Nate Atkins at natkins@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @NateAtkins_.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts mailbag: How can Jelani Woods and Drew Ogletree fit together?
