Colts re-sign nose tackle Grover Stewart after watching defense without him last season
INDIANAPOLIS — The Colts saw what life was like without Grover Stewart in the middle of their run defense last season.
The dam is a lot less leaky when the big man is where he belongs.
Indianapolis made sure to keep Stewart on Monday, bringing back the mammoth nose tackle on a three-year deal worth up to $39 million, although the full details of the contract have not been revealed yet.
A deal that gave Stewart what he’d wanted all along.
“I want to be here,” Stewart said at the end of the season.
Stewart, 30, has never known another NFL team.
The last remaining member of general manager Chris Ballard’s first draft class in 2017, Stewart has been a stalwart on the Indianapolis defensive line since the end of the 2019 season, when he wrested the nose tackle job away from Margus Hunt and started blossoming into one of the NFL’s best run defenders.
DeForest Buckner arrived in Indianapolis in a trade that offseason, pairing Stewart with the perfect partner on the interior of the defensive line.
Stewart has not looked back. From 2020 through 2023, he has been the linchpin of a good Colts run defense, a durable, brawling defender who hasn’t missed a game due to injury since he took over in the starting lineup.
“Everybody who comes to know Grove loves Grove,” Buckner said at the end of the season. “I feel like that’s definitely going to be one of the big-time guys that we need to get back here, and I feel like we’re going to get it done.”
Buckner’s point was driven home by Stewart’s six-game absence last season, a suspension for violating the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing drugs.
The difference was stark. When Stewart was in the lineup last season, the Colts allowed 3.7 yards per carry and a little more than 107 rushing yards per game, efficiency numbers that made Indianapolis a top-10 rush defense. Without Stewart, Indianapolis gave up 4.7 yards per carry and more than 153 rushing yards per game, numbers that would have landed among the NFL’s worst run defenses, despite playing five of those games against rush offenses ranked in the bottom 10 in the NFL in yards per carry.
Indianapolis tried to replace Stewart with a combination of players, including veteran Taven Bryan and 2022 fifth-round pick Eric Johnson.
No one could fill Stewart’s shoes.
Despite missing six games, Stewart finished the season with 41 tackles, five tackles-for-loss and a career-high eight quarterback hits, one year after an incredible season that produced 70 tackles, nine tackles-for-loss, four sacks and seven quarterback hits.
The deal Stewart signed looks a lot like the three-year, $30 million extension he signed during the 2020 season, at least in terms of the overall cap number, and it fell short of the monster deals for the pass-rushing tackles at the top of the market (Chris Jones, Christian Wilkins, Justin Madubuike), who all signed for more than $24 million per year, but could still place him at the top of the nose tackle market.
Indianapolis spent the opening day of free agency locking up its own players, signing wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr., linebacker Zaire Franklin, defensive lineman Tyquan Lewis and Stewart to multi-year deals.
And while the defensive front remains intact, Indianapolis still has work to do in the secondary, where the team’s two most experienced starters, cornerback Kenny Moore II and safety Julian Blackmon, remain free agents on the open market.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts re-sign nose tackle Grover Stewart
