Indianapolis Colts must draft on need, which won’t be difficult
2016 is a make-or-break year for the Indianapolis Colts somehow intact tag team of Ryan Grigson and Chuck Pagano, and if they don’t crack the postseason, they can kiss their paychecks from Jim Irsay goodbye.
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It’s hard to find a GM who has recovered from more whiffs than Grigson, but the Indianapolis Colts have to give him credit for some of the smart draft decisions he’s made. I mean, Grigson did find an elite receiver in T.Y. Hilton in the third round, and he somewhat rectified the boneheaded Trent Richardson trade by stealing away two excellent players in Jack Mewhort and Donte Moncrief in the second and third rounds, respectively. Oh, and that Henry Anderson guy he drafted last year looks pretty good.
On multiple occasions, Grigson has shown that he’s willing to light conventional wisdom- and, by extension, Twitter- on fire, and no decision exemplifies this better than the Phillip Dorsett selection in the first round of last year’s draft.
Facing gaping holes on defense and on the offensive line, Grigson ignored critical positions of need in favor of selecting a deep threat whose ceiling would be equivalent to Hilton’s current play. After the Colts signed Hilton to a big deal and imploded during the regular season, Grigson’s gamble went from being seen as ballsy and controversial to being outright inane.
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Bypassing positions of need in last year’s draft may have hurt the Colts, but unless if he’s toying with us, which can’t be ruled out, Grigson seems unfazed.
According to ESPN NFL Nation’s Mike Wells, the former Purdue captain, “I think it’s weak, no matter what your needs are, to look at your board and see Player A here and then you have Player B, C and D down here, and you [say], ‘Well, we have to get a need. That defies the whole process.”
Maybe it defies his process, but I’ll tell you what defies logic. Going into the 2016 season in a division that you no longer own and doing nothing to improve an interior offensive line that nearly killed Andrew Luck or a defense that was 25th in points per game allowed and yards per game allowed.
To put it bluntly, the squad he built has major deficiencies, and if he doesn’t fill these needs, he won’t be back next year. If the Colts defense is as bad as it was last year, then there’s no way this team will be good enough for him to stay another season. Luck will be back with a vengeance, but literally all of the other teams in the division have improved. As of right now, the Jacksonville Jaguars are indeed on the rise after an active free agency, and the Houston Texans just might be the favorites after bolstering their offense.
On the bright side, the Colts have so many needs that the only positions they aren’t weak at are wide receiver, tight end, and cornerback. Guard, tackle, and outside linebacker are their three most pressing needs, but drafting a defensive lineman or inside linebacker at No. 18 would also qualify as drafting on need.
I wouldn’t knock the Colts for drafting a skill position player, including a wide receiver, in the third round or later, but this roster is dangerously unbalanced. Only a well-rounded draft class can solve this problem, because Grigson might only have one shot to get this right. As unfair as it is to expect instant gratification from a draft class, he simply might not have a choice. Grigson is making moves for his job, which means he needs short-term success. The best way to do that? Draft standout offensive linemen and pass rushers.
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Whether it’s Taylor Decker, Cody Whitehair, Noah Spence (if they have him graded out well, which I highly doubt is the case), or one of a number of quality defensive line prospects in this class, the Colts must fortify the trenches. That should be their priority, because if they don’t do a better job of protecting Luck or produce a competent effort on defense, then Grigson will have to be the resident risk-taker under a GM in someone else’s front office in 2017.