Defend & flexibility are the two words that best describe the Colts’ 2024 draft picks. The first two picks required some defending from Chris Ballard for different reasons and the other picks saw flexibility in positions. One of those went from corner to safety to linebacker now and another played four out of five possible offensive line positions in college.

Laiatu Latu took defending because of a four year old neck injury and surgery. To hear Latu tell the story of a surgery that took place during the height of the pandemic in the liberal states of Washington and California, it sounds like it was mismanaged. He fell victim to a lack of proper care due to social distancing. One could wonder how many athletes were lost to this same scenario. Nevertheless, he took care of his own physical therapy, continued to play rugby and spent the past two college seasons as one of the most dominant defensive forces.

Adonai Mitchell, on the other hand, required Ballard to advocate on his behalf because of the common practice of misinformation from anonymous sources within the last weeks leading up to the draft. It was reported that he was difficult to deal with off the field for a variety of reasons. Ballard took exception to this much like he did last year with the CJ Stroud S2 cognition test results “leak.” He stated that “these are 21, 22 year old young men,” and believes they need a fair chance without anonymous outside information.

Interestingly enough, Mitchell mentioned being “pissed” after he was drafted, but never concretely stated why. It was believed it was due to him falling in the draft order, but I do wonder if, being from the Houston area, he has an underlying dislike of the Colts franchise. Just something to keep an eye on.

Other draft picks included WR Anthony Gould who is believed to be used in the kicking game as a returner and Tanor Bortolini who played center, left and right guard, as well as right tackle during his time at Wisconsin. Jaylon Carlies and Jaylin Simpson were both safeties, but Carlies is expected to be converted to linebacker after starting college as a corner and Simpson is now listed as a corner.

Overall, while the Colts continued to spend most of their draft picks on unknown, gifted athletes with upside, they did get unexpected value with their first two picks unexpectedly falling into their laps. Time will tell, as with all drafts, how successful this draft class is. But there was a mix of immediate impact and building for the future which is what the draft is about.