Why Colts DC Gus Bradley went with Tony Brown, and stuck with him, at CB in Saints loss
INDIANAPOLIS — The Colts coaching staff did not feel like there was an obvious answer at cornerback last week to fill the hole left by the absence of promising rookie cornerback JuJu Brents.
Defensive coordinator Gus Bradley, secondary coach Ron Milus and the rest of the Indianapolis defensive staff didn’t want to move Kenny Moore II outside full-time, leaving the Colts with the difficulty of making a tough decision among the other four cornerbacks on the roster.
For the staff, though, the decision came down to two players.
Darrell Baker Jr., a second-year player who opened the season as a starter before getting benched in favor of Brents after just two games, seemed like the most obvious. Baker had also replaced Brents when he went down against Cleveland.
Indianapolis also has veteran special teamer Tony Brown.
Colts news: Lack of cornerback depth dooms Colts in 38-27 loss to Saints
“We just felt like, ‘Well, we don’t know exactly how Tony would play,’” Bradley said. “We kind of have a pretty good idea of D.J., what he brings. Tony’s got some speed, he understands the package, so it was a little bit of: ‘Let’s see what we have here.’”
Indianapolis had little experience with Brown’s abilities as a cornerback.
Until Sunday’s game, Brown had played just 10 defensive snaps over two seasons in a Colts uniform, all of them as an emergency nickel — Bradley had said three weeks ago that the staff was comfortable with Brown in the nickel for a handful of plays. Nine of Brown’s defensive snaps as a Colt came in 2022; he’d played one this season, picking off a tipped ball in the opener against Jacksonville.
Truth be told, he hadn’t played much cornerback in the NFL since he played 287 snaps for Green Bay’s defense in his rookie season in 2018. Brown played 47 defensive snaps for the Packers in 2019, then 95 for the Bengals in 2020.
Most of his time in the NFL has been spent on special teams.
But the Colts did not have a lot of other options.
Indianapolis traded Stephon Gilmore to the Cowboys, allowed Brandon Facyson to leave for Las Vegas in free agency and lost Isaiah Rodgers to a violation of the NFL’s gambling policy, and general manager Chris Ballard decided to replace the 1,948 snaps they’d played with three draft picks and two second-year cornerbacks who’d been undrafted free agents in the 2022 class.
The Colts have stuck to that strategy through the Rodgers suspension and subsequent release, the release of fifth-round cornerback Darius Rush at the end of training camp, a season-ending torn Achilles suffered by starter Dallis Flowers and a quadriceps injury that knocked Brents out on a week-to-week basis, according to head coach Shane Steichen.
Indianapolis added another rookie last week, claiming former Georgia and Michigan State cornerback Ameer Speed, a sixth-round pick, off waivers from the New England Patriots on Oct. 20, but Speed hasn’t been a Colt long enough to know the defense.
“It’s been like four days (of practice),” Bradley said. “He’s tall, he’s long, he can run. We’re trying to get him caught up as fast as possible.”
The Colts also had two players on the practice squad listed as cornerbacks. Veteran Chris Lammons was temporarily promoted to handle the role Brown plays on special teams, and Indianapolis hasn’t mentioned Darren Hall as a possibility at the position, even though Hall accumulated 10 starts and 916 defensive snaps over the past two seasons in Atlanta.
In the Colts’ eyes, Baker and Brown were the only two options, considering that the defensive staff has resisted the urge to put second-year safety Nick Cross, a third-round draft pick a year ago, on the field in a three-safety look, even though Cross can play the nickel — he spent last week practicing there in case Moore suffered an injury.
Baker has allowed opposing quarterbacks to compile a 126.2 rating against him in 158 defensive snaps this season, along with two controversial penalties at the end of the Browns game.
“We had D.J. out there (this season), we gave him a couple of opportunities,” Bradley said.
Playing Brown backfired.
New Orleans clearly targeted his area — IndyStar unofficially charted nine passes thrown in Brown’s direction Sunday — although at least one of the plays that looked like Brown’s responsibility was actually a mistake by free safety Rodney Thomas.
A big mistake on a 58-yard touchdown to Rashid Shaheed that gave the Saints a lead heading into the half.
“The deep post that was caught early, that was not Tony Brown,” Bradley said. “I know he was running with the post all by himself, but he should have, based on the read, had free safety play on that. Rodney should have been on the post. Tony, you can see him hesitate based on the read. So it appeared like, oh, that’s Tony Brown, when really, Tony did what he was supposed to.”
The fact that it was Thomas’s mistake played a role in the coaching staff sticking with Brown throughout the game.
“I know there’s been some questions, did you think about making a change,” Bradley said. “Well, with that information, that wasn’t Tony, even though it appeared like him. Some of those things happened later on, too.”
But it also bit the Colts later, most notably on a third-and-13 late in the fourth quarter, when Indianapolis still had a chance to tie. New Orleans sent Shaheed out against Brown again and hit a 51-yard completion, all but sealing the game.
“Being as strong a competitor as I am, it’s tough to lose, it’s tough to get the last play, I feel like, on me,” Brown said Sunday. “I take full responsibility for the plays that occurred.”
An update on Brents hasn’t been issued by the Colts yet; the last designation he was given by Steichen was “week to week,” and the rookie has missed one game so far.
If Brents is out again this week against the Panthers, the Indianapolis defensive staff might have to try something else at his spot this week in Charlotte.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts: Why Gus Bradley went with Tony Brown, stuck with him vs. Saints
