Insider: Do Colts need man-to-man skills, physicality or the grandson of a roofer at CB?

INDIANAPOLIS — The Colts overhauled the cornerback position a year ago.

Indianapolis cut loose its veteran starters, used three draft picks on cornerbacks and handed the position to young, unproven players, betting that growing pains in the short term will be offset by long-term stability at a premium position.

The renovation is likely far from complete.

“You’ve got to continually add competition,” Colts general manager Chris Ballard said at the NFL Scouting Combine this week.

Preferably competition for a starting spot, given the uncertainty at the position.

Drafting a cornerback should be a firm possibility when the Colts make their first-round pick in April, the No. 15 pick of the draft.

For starters, the team’s lone established cornerback, Kenny Moore II, is a free agent, a franchise mainstay who rarely came off the field a year ago. Moore plays on the outside when the Colts have just two cornerbacks on the field, then shifts inside to the slot on the rest of the snaps.

Moore remains a valuable, versatile force after seven seasons, a player with the physicality to make an impact at the line of scrimmage and the ball skills to force turnovers in coverage.

“He had a really good year, a bounce-back year,” Ballard said. “What he does as the nickel, it is valuable, and it’s valuable to us. We’ll see how it works out. Love to have him back. I think he knows that.”

The Colts face uncertainty at the outside spots for different reasons.

Three young cornerbacks — Dallis Flowers, Jaylon Jones and JuJu Brents — flashed starting potential at certain points of 2023.

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But Flowers is coming off a torn Achilles tendon, Brents played just 10 games due to quadriceps and hamstring injuries, and, although Jones outplayed his draft position as a seventh-round pick, he struggled at times down the stretch.

“We like the talent level of those guys,” Ballard said. “They did some really good things during the year. Look, there were some plays they gave up, but I didn’t think it was a total sieve in the back end.”

Indianapolis still needs to be better at cornerback in 2024.

Inconsistency at free safety played a role in the secondary’s struggles last season, and young players on the roster could take another step. However, potential injuries alone create a need for more starting-caliber cornerbacks; five players logged at least one start and more than 304 snaps at cornerback for the Colts last season.

Indianapolis could add experience in free agency.

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The Colts could also dip back into the draft to take advantage of a cornerback class that might not have a clear-cut No. 1 prospect at the position yet, but does have plenty of players who might fit in the range of the No. 15 pick.

An NFL team can never have too many starting-caliber cornerbacks.

“My granddad was a roofer,” Alabama cornerback Terrion Arnold said. “My granddad always told me, ‘On the roof, no one’s coming to save you.’ … When I’m on that roof, it’s the high pitch, I’m walking up there, you slip on the fiberglass, you kind of get a little rocky, a little shaky. If you lose confidence in yourself, you’re going to slip and fall. It’s the same way with playing corner.”

Arnold, Clemson’s Nate Wiggins, Toledo’s Quinyon Mitchell, Missouri’s Ennis Rakestraw Jr. and Iowa’s Cooper DeJean are all in the first-round mix at cornerback, and just about all of them have the length the Colts like.

Identifying the right fit will come down to the evaluation.

For example, Wiggins touted himself as a man-to-man cornerback at the combine on Thursday, repeatedly touting his one-on-one skills.

“Follow the best receivers and lock them up,” Wiggins said.

Indianapolis runs a zone-heavy scheme under defensive coordinator Gus Bradley, but the Colts also run a lot of match coverage in their zones, a technique that asks defenders to turn their zones into something that looks more like man-to-man as the play develops.

The Colts also like corners who play with physicality, and Ballard has long been looking for a cornerback with the ball skills to create turnovers.

Mitchell, from Toledo, picked off six passes and broke up 45 in his last two collegiate seasons, then proved he could play against receivers from bigger schools at the Senior Bowl.

“Breaking the ball up, playing through the hands, not panicking downfield,” Mitchell said. “Honestly, that’s my top trait.”

Any rookie the Colts take will likely go through some growing pains.

If a first-round pick is going to challenge for a starting spot, though, the rookie would have to prove he can be reliable in his assignment. One of the reasons that Bradley felt he couldn’t often diversify his coverage calls in 2023 was the young secondary’s penchant for coverage lapses.

When a cornerback makes a mistake on his assignment, there are rarely a lot of options behind him to clean up the mess.

“Accountability,” Rakestraw said. “My teammates can count on me to be in the right place at the right time. That’s how I pride myself and measure myself as a player.”

Then there’s the looming specter of Moore’s free agency.

If Indianapolis loses Moore, the Colts do not have another cornerback on the roster who profiles as a likely nickel, although safety Nick Cross has played the position in the past. If the Colts bring back Moore, the 28-year-old will be heading into his eighth season, and it might be smart to have a player on the roster who could shift into Moore’s role if the veteran loses time to injury.

With Cross playing free safety late last season, Indianapolis did not have a clear option when Moore was forced to miss a game against the Raiders.

Enter DeJean, the ballhawking playmaker from Iowa.

DeJean picked off seven passes in the past two seasons for the Hawkeyes, has the physicality to play inside and the change-of-direction skills — he doubled as an electric punt returner — to handle the quickness of slot receivers.

“I’ve talked to a few teams about moving around,” DeJean said. “Being able to play multiple, different positions, I think that’s an advantage coming into this league, being able to play wherever they put me.”

The Colts could use another cornerback with that kind of versatility.

More importantly, the Colts could use another starting-caliber cornerback — or two — to strengthen the position. By the time the No. 15 pick arrives in April, most analysts expect a run on quarterbacks, wide receivers and offensive tackles to clear those positions off the board.

Leaving plenty of cornerback options for Indianapolis to consider.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts: Cornerback should be in play with 15th pick