Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - COLTS SQUAD SHOW: Anthony Richardson Seeks TRADE | The QB & Colts Heading For a Split This Offseason

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

The Squad convenes to discuss the big news of the day: Anthony Richardson seeking a trade from the Colts. We'll discuss how the story ends here and what compensation Indianapolis could receive for him, and Allen Pinkett remembers the good old days of the old-school NFL Combine! Find and follow Locked On Colts on your favorite podcast platforms:  🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/podcasts/locked-on-colts/  📺YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLdpxJspi1hMh5HL7ExpWOQ  Give the squad a follow on X/Twitter @Schultz975, @JakeArthurNFL, @ZachHicks2, @allenpinkett, @LockedOnColts, and @ColtsOn_SI, as well on TikTok and Instagram!  Locked On NFL League-Wide: Every Team, Fantasy, Draft & More  🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/podcasts/lockedoncolts Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! TurboTax For a limited time, you can have your taxes done by a local TurboTax expert for just $150 — all in, if a TurboTax expert didn’t file for you last year. Just file by February 28. Visit http://TurboTax.com/local to book your appointment today. FanDuel Use your Profit Boost on an NBA future and get entered for your chance to win a trip to the NBA Finals. Play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Visit https://FANDUEL.COMto get started. 5-Hour ENERGY Have your cake & drink it too. Birthday cake-flavor is back, no fork needed. Vanilla-y cakey flavor, caffeinated kick, and no sugar. It's party time. Order Now at 5-hourENERGY.com or Amazon. Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast. HomeChefFor a limited time, Home Chef is offering my listeners 50% off your first box, free shipping, and free dessert for life. Just go to https://HomeChef.com/LOCKEDON. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Colts Squad Show. I'm your host, Derek Shultz. I can say that I've never tapped out of a squad show in my entire life. And I'm Zach Hicks. And you get the best of both worlds today. You get Zach Hicks in Jake Arthur's office. And I'm Alan Pinkett, former Euler. And I'm sort of jealous because Zach is down there watching the guys in short Super Bowl. Colts Nation rise up. It's the Colt Squad. Everything Indianapolis, Colts, Colts. every week covering all the big hits and game changing plays from the circle city the way only the locked on podcast network can it's time to squad up the colt squajo starts now welcome in to the cold squad show i'm your host derrick shultz long-time indie sports talker columnist for the indianapolis business journal and i'm joined by a nter name legend and long-time nfo running back who needs no introduction but i'm going to do it anyway

Alan Pinkett, along with everyone's favorite film buff, Zach Hicks of Lockdown Colts, your first listen every day. Jake Arthur will rejoin us in the future as he's churning out the awesome content that you've come to expect from Locked on Colts and he's obviously been. So is Zach a very busy man this week. NFL Combine Week fellas continues,

but the biggest Colts news today has nothing to do with a prospect. In fact, it has something to do with the NFL Combine star of 2023. And that's Anthony Richardson. Seeking a trade from Indianapolis. I know Jake and Zach already touched on it on their daily show, but we'll get the squad together to talk about that. It's the biggest news of the day in the opening segment of the show here in just a few minutes. We'll talk Colts Combine Targets. We talked a little

bit about positions and things like that of need, but maybe kind of narrow our focus a little bit to some individual names. I know Jake and Zach have done a wonderful job of kind of going through these prospect profiles as well. What do the Colts look for in these workouts? You know, one thing about the Combine is that everybody's a little bit different. You know, some people go after the RAS, right, the athletic score, some people like the production, different strokes, different folks. We're going to talk about that just, you know, Chris Bauer has been here for 100 years. So we have a pretty good idea of what the Colts and the scouting staff like when it comes these prospects.

And then this is going to be the most fun portion of the show. I've been looking forward to this all week. We're going to share some of our thoughts just on the NFL Combine as an event overall. But Allen's old school combine memories, I'm not trying to make Alan feel old or anything like that, but the NFL Combine was in a very different place in 1986. I think I have that year, right? It was in a different town, in fact, in Nola, New Orleans, Louisiana. And so we'll talk about that to wrap up the show and have some fun with it.

But, Zach, you know, as I mentioned, it was the biggest news of the day. My phone dinged mid-afternoon, Anthony Richardson seeking a trade. But sometimes when the phone dings, you look down and you go, holy, you know what, I look down after the phone dinged and I said, put it back in my pocket because I think this was pretty much a fate of compil that both sides were going to part ways here. Yeah, the way that we talked about it on the daily show today was like, developing new story, I guess, not really anything breaking. Because we've been operating from this expected standpoint,

expected point of view, I guess, that there was going to be this divorce between player and organization. At some point this off season, the Colts have been very open about their commitment to Daniel Jones all off season, despite him being a free agent here in a couple of weeks. So we'll see if they get that deal done. And they seemed ready for that breakup with Anthony Richardson. And it's unfortunate, you know, whenever a top five pick,

whenever a draft pick in general doesn't work out, your team and it kind of goes this route. It is very unfortunate because obviously you have such high hopes when it comes to this. I mean, look, we're at the NFL combine right now. We're talking about all these guys and their potential futures in the league, but this is what usually happens with a lot of these draft picks, right? Maybe not a trade, but being off of the team that takes them or being on their second or third team on their rookie contracts. This is just the nature of being an NFL player. But it's certainly just different when it comes to the quarterback position. it's more public, it's more open.

Again, you're a top five picks, so it's all going to be out there. And the Colts apparently, you know, appeared to have moved on this past season. And now it's just kind of in writing that there's going to be a new home for Richardson at some point this off season. So we'll see. We'll see where he ends up. We speculated on the Daily Show that, you know, the Cardinals make a lot of sense. The Browns make a lot of sense. The Dolphins, if they're going for this whole blow it up type season,

and we're just going to take the poison pill, eat all the two of dead money. This year you get Anthony Richardson for only $5 million against the cap, and you can just see what he has. And then you just build on that going forward if he ends up doing something well. I think those teams make the most sense. And then there's even the, you know, go the Vikings route, go the Rams route, sit there and learn from the best coaches in football and reset your mind and maybe get a chance in the future.

So there are going to be opportunities for Anthony Richardson. For the Colts, they'll get a draft pick back. They can move forward with Riley Leonard as the backup and Daniel Jones, the starter, and they can go from there. But this was the expected outcome coming into the offseason. Chris Ballard was very noncommittal the last couple days about Richardson. And now we're getting the official news that, like, yes, there will almost certainly be a trade at some point this offseason.

And Richardson will be on his second team by the end of this offseason for sure. Well, Zach, you talked about it being a divorce. At least it was an amicable divorce because most of the time, the team doesn't play their card. The team doesn't announce to the agent, yes, you can go out and market your player. And I can think of my own experience. Usually, when you get traded, it's a surprise. In fact, the way I found out I got traded was my agent actually called me and said, hey, get over to the facility and talk to the GM because they're trying to work a trade right now.

Usually you don't hear about the trade. And let's face it, the player is an asset to the organization. So the team is trying to reap as much value as they can out of this particular asset. And that's their job. But you talk about how Chris Ballard thinks about the person before the player. And I think this is one of those situations where he definitely thought about the person. Because, you know, I guess the reports I saw is he is okay with the agent going out to market his player to get a trade, to get him in a spot where it might benefit him most.

It doesn't happen like that most of the time. So, you know, good for Anthony Richardson. It didn't work out here. you know, it's best just to cut bait right now. And maybe he has a chance to shine somewhere else. And the Colts can move on and go about their business. You know, but this happens on every single team at some point. Yeah, no, for sure.

I will say this one thing that, yes, I do think that part of it is the Colts being like, go out and find the best situation for you and we'll work a deal for you. but there's also the business side of it where it's like, come back to us with the list of teams that you talk to and that you feel good about, and then we'll put those teams against each other to potentially see if we can get this up to like a fourth round pick. So there is some business aspect to this as well.

But yeah, ultimately it's about moving on from Richard and getting some draft capital back, re-putting that, putting that. And also they would save like $5 million in cap space, which is not a ton, but every single thing counts, you know, when it comes to building a team. So, yeah, there's a lot of incentive for the Colts to move on. And again, like, Richardson's a former top five pick.

He wants to start. There's no path for that here in Indy anymore going forward. So it's time for that breakup. And that $5 million can help cushion that blow they're going to get from Pittman. Yeah, depending on what they do with that, right, exactly. Yeah, and you know, guys, even if this is the first time this has gone public, they've undoubtedly been thinking about this for a while because this, this relationship has been over for a while.

Like the Colts will never come out and say this, but the second that Anthony Richardson lost the starting job in August to Daniel Jones, this was over. And I don't think anything really, you know, sometimes situations are fluid and they change. This is one of those situations that I think was, no one has ever gotten benched twice because that's what that was. He was benched.

I mean, we watched Daniel Jones in camp and all of that. He was okay. It's not like he lit the world on fire. I think that decision was as much about, yes, we can win with Jones, but I think that decision was as much about we can't win with this guy as it was about Jones. I think it was kind of an equal thing. And so I think they've been out for a while. But that's good, right?

Because we're trying to look at this optimistically. You're preparing for this. And I think Richardson deep down knew what was going on to and his camp knew what was going on. And it'll be a best thing for both of them to move on because we've seen a lot of these quarterbacks, even guys that we've written completely off, come back. and have great second chapters. And sometimes that second chapter has come with their fourth or fifth team. I mean, look at what happened with Sam Darnold, right?

But it's interesting to think about, Zach, you know, you mentioned the fourth round pick and the trade compensation. And, you know, I think the immediate content comes to mind because it was fairly recent, too, was Trey Lance, right? And I'm wondering if it's a, more of a blessing or more of a curse that, you know, Lance through something like 90 or 100 passes. He only had a very small handful of starts. not that Richardson had a whole bunch of starts,

but certainly Richardson's put a lot more on tape than what Lance has. And does that actually maybe hurt his value more? Or do you think to yourself, hey, he's had some more experience or maybe it all comes out on the wash? I think at least in Richardson's standpoint, because Lance, everything that he had put on film was not good, you know? And that's why he only had so few things on film. Where Richardson, you know, the first year was pretty solid from him,

you know, some ups and downs. But overall, I think it was a pretty solid first season. Right. Yeah, he flashed. Second season, he comes out there and some very, very low lows. A couple highs here and there, but mostly low lows. But there have been enough highs, I think, in the first couple of seasons where it's not like we're talking like a Zach Wilson situation, right, where we're trading him for like a sixth or a seventh. And I mean, they might get a six for him, but I don't think it's going to be that low. I think around like a fourth or a fifth, probably like a fifth or

so is where we're going to settle with this. If they get anything more than that, I'd be very happy for the Colts. But yeah, it's so interesting because when it comes to quarterback trades and just moving quarterbacks, desperation is the name of the game, right? And who knows how desperate these teams are going to get when you're looking at a quarterback market this off season that's essentially Fernando Mendoza, Malik Willis, Kyler Marie, I guess? Yeah, it's a really bad group.

there's not enough quarterbacks to fill the voids out there. And I'm not saying that Richardson is this perfect fill to the void, but he's more interesting, I guess, than going for Tua, you know, on the open market, trading for a retired Derek Carr, drafting a six foot one, 190 pound Ty Simpson in round one, who has never played a healthy season of college football at this point. You know, and he hasn't even been good when he's played either.

So I think that a team can talk themselves more into Richardson then they can talk themselves into some of these other options. So we'll see what a trade comp looks like. It's really hard to project that out because it really just comes down to desperation, pre-draft valuation. Like the Minnesota Vikings were trying to trade three first round picks to come up and get Richardson in that draft a couple of years back. But because they were in the mid-20s, they couldn't get up there and get him.

So if they still have the same kind of love for him, maybe they'd just go all out and get him. So, yeah, it all comes down in desperation of what the quarterback market looks like. But we'll see. Combine, a lot of these deals get done. A lot of these handshakes get done. And I wouldn't be shocked to see if the Colts are able to work out a deal with the next couple weeks. Well, look, if you're able to go out and market yourself for a trade, it's just like getting drafted. All you need is one person to love you. That's it.

And so you got 31 suitors and you just need one of them to care enough. And there will be someone out there because most of these coaches feel like, you know, they know how to coach. They can get the best out of a certain player. And some of the skills that Anthony has can't be coached. The athleticism that he has, the rocket arm that he has, that can't be coached. If there's someone out there that can refine some of that a little bit, you know, or get them in the film room to be able to recognize. recognize when it's scat protection and you got a blitz coming in your face.

I think his fate was sealed in that preseason game against Baltimore when he didn't recognize the protection. And I just, you know, for a coach that drives you crazy because, you know, in the meeting room, it's so monotonous. You're going over the same damn thing over and over and over again. And they spend the most time on Blitz pickup, you know, more time on that because they don't want their big investment getting, you know, knocked out. You know, so they spend so much time. Then you get in the game and you bust on that. Then you just, as a coach, you lost all confidence, all faith.

We are moving on, you know. But, again, I think it was amicable because they are letting the agent go out and market them. But, you know, as the team, you just say good riddance, see what we can get for them. And I think Chris Ballard is doing the right thing by letting the agent help him shop him. You know, so at least there's somebody out there, you know, saying some good things about them. Maybe you can get some good vibes from them because all the other teams are calling Chris Ballard saying, what's wrong with him? Yeah, no, for sure. And I will just to go off of the preseason moment,

I do think, I don't know if that was like the tipping point in this relationship, but I do think it was kind of like the final straw in the relationship. Because there were plenty of tipping points, one being the tap out, we all talk about in 2024, where us sitting at home, we could say it's not that big a deal. But in the machismo, that is NFL football, that is a big part of like tapping out of a game as a quarterback. You know, you have offensive linemen that are playing every single snap and busting their butts on every play.

it's a tough look, you know, for a lot of players. Ryan Kelly called it out in particular when he was here. So you have that. You have the benching that happened a couple weeks later that season. Then you had him being reinserted back in the lineup, I think kind of against what Shane Stuyken wanted. You had some distractions off the field. And it's just like, I think there was a lot of things that led up to that preseason

moment and then dislocating the pinky with such a basic thing in year three when they had Daniel Jones in here, was just the straw that broke the camel's back. So a lot of things went into this, and ultimately this is where we are, where we are. And I hope the best for Richardson, the next place. I hope he can get away from distractions,

can stay healthy and figure this thing out. But for the cold, it definitely is time to move on. Yeah, we talk about outliers. I mean, he was the ultimate outlier, wasn't he? Also an outlier to have a general manager missed this badly on a top four pick. I don't know if you guys know who the second round pick was in that 2023 class. Do yourself a favor and go back and look at that class. And he's still here yet. So that is also an outlier situation for where the Colts are. Who are some of the prospects at the

Combine that makes sense for the Colts in the draft? We're going to discuss that next when the Colts Squad Show returns. This portion of the Colts Squad Show brought you by Fandool. Who else? Ever wanted to experience the NBA finals live and in person? FanDul's giving you the chance to turn that dream into reality with their NBA sweepstakes. Here's how it works. Use your profit boost on any NBA future and you'll automatically be answered for a shot to win an NBA finals trip for two. That's right. Flight tickets, the whole experience. I know this is an NFL show. I know we talk Colts on the show. I'm a huge NBA dork. You know, Pacers here in town as well. And I love, I've mentioned this before. I love futures this time of year where you're

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use your profit boost on an NBA future. Get entered for your chance to win a trip to the NBA finals. Play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. And we're back on Locked on Colts. Thanks so much for joining us on this Thursday afternoon. Derek Schultz, Zach Hicks, both in Indianapolis, Alan Pinkett, in the state of Indiana, as we're talking NFL Combine and Colts. Guys, moving on from Anthony Richardson. And obviously, as you mentioned, Zach, you and Jake, you know, ongoing story, right? So we'll get some finality when the trade, I'm assuming, finally happens.

And then we can kind of leave the post-mortems and all of that for after the fact. But let's talk about the now and let's talk about the future, which doesn't involve Anthony Richardson anymore, but it does involve a lot of the guys who are working out this week at Lucas Loyal Stadium. I know we've talked about positions of need. We talked about linebacker and things like that. Are there any individual prospects that have just kind of jumped out to you this, maybe not even this week, Zach, but just in this process of evaluating some of these players that you think would be great fits for the Colts and then maybe what they've done or what they're about to do in the NFL Combine, if they haven't worked out yet, just can only underline or

affirm your feeling on them as a prospect. Yeah, there's a lot. I mean, I think we have to start with the linebackers in D-line who just worked out today. I think their workouts are just wrapping up now. And I just want to use this moment just to complain again about the fact that they put the agility at the very end of a very long day for these players. And agility is the most important drill, like across the board for pretty much every position. The three cone and the short shuttle are very vital because a lot of these guys are big,

fast and explosive, right? But can you turn? Do you have the ankle flexibility? Do you have the hip flexibility to turn corners? That's the separator in the NFL. And it sucks that we don't get to see those drills here because a lot of these guys opt out because they're up since 5 a.m. and they're doing these drills at 8.30 p.m. off screen. Like what are we doing with the agilities here? But we did see a couple guys do the agilitys. And one guy in particular, Penn State, defensive end, deny Dennis Sutton. I think it's how I think it's how I say it. Deny Dennis Sutton, former five-star recruit was fairly productive in college overall.

He had like 24 sacks in his four years. But just, oh, it got kind of his plateau in college and just kind of leveled out at his junior season. But the combine performance he had today on the field, oh my gosh. Just what, six five, like 260, or I think it was a little under 260 today, ran in the four sixes. had some of the best vertical and broad jumps, ran an under seven second three cone drill at 260 pounds. And that's usually the benchmark for speed rushers.

Like for perspective here, Quitty Pay, I'm sorry, Quitty Pay. I'm bringing up his name here. Quitty pay ran under that seven second threshold as well. But he did it at a pro day in a controlled environment during the COVID year. And he was like a good like 15 pounds lighter than this guy. So this guy at a much bigger size at the combine where it's. It's a tougher environment. Again, at the end of a very long day on this slippery turf field was able to hit under that benchmark.

So the workout was incredible. And then you look over at just all these linebackers, these linebackers consistently running under four, six. All of them. Like, this is, these linebackers are scooting. And Sunny Stiles, who the Colts don't have a chance at. He's going to go top 10 in this draft, Ohio State linebacker putting together arguably the greatest combine performance we've ever seen. You know, the 43 inch vertical jump, 11. two broad jump and then coming out here and running a 4-4-7.

Oh, my gosh, just one of the greatest athletes we've ever seen. It's like a Calvin Johnson level workout at linebacker right now. But there is speed for days at linebacker in this class, especially on the D-line as well. And then when you get to kind of these interviews that Jake and I have been doing in the mornings, you know, there's several standouts. You know, I've talked to high and low guys, guys who at the top of the draft, Lee Hunter, who could be there with the Colts pick in round two. a big nose tackle.

Didn't test out of this world, but he's a nose tackle. Zero techs are not going to test like the greatest athletes in the world. Very fun, very boisterous guy, really fun to talk to. Very Grover Stewart-like in his mannerisms and how he spoke. And then you get to Gangello Pond, the Indiana corner, was very, very fun to talk to today. Jake had a blast with him. He compared his game to like a Kenny Moore, a smaller corner who has lasted in the NFL for a long time.

and a lot of young players look up to that kind of guy. And I even in particular liked Avery Smith from Toledo. Toledo has become kind of a DB factory in recent years. Quinion Mitchell, Max and Hook last year. They have three defensive backs here this year, Toledo of all places, three defensive backs. And Avery Smith was their slot corner last year. And I just thought one of the funniest things about him today

was each of these guys get like 15 minutes on the podium, right? He's out here for his 15 minutes. and I guess the guy behind him was running late. So he ended up talking for like a good 30-something minutes on his podium. And I don't think anybody noticed. So he was just going and going for 30 minutes. But he was such a likable, amicable guy that we were all just kind of enjoying talking to him. So I'm a very big fan of his game.

I watched some of him before I went down there and he put on some good stuff on film as well. So lots of like here about the combine so far. Tomorrow we got quarterbacks and wide receivers. And then Saturday the best day of the week, we are talking to offensive linemen. So I'll be there bright and early talking to all the offensive line in my favorite position group. Well, I wish I could give you a name of who they would draft. But, you know, being a former player, I depend on guys like Zach to give me that information. But the thing that kind of sucks is there is a lot of good talent there on the D-line and the linebackers.

Yeah, their performance by it was Sunny Stiles. His performance, I mean, he ran a faster 40 than me. I ran 448, and he ran 447. And, you know, when you think about somebody with that size being able to run, but the lineback position has changed. And I think now in college they're catching up to what is needed and the pros. You need a guy that can run because they're going to be covering tight ends, going to have to cover running backs, and you're going to have to go bang heads with a 320-pound

offensive linemen from time to time. So the position is evolving. But the thing that's kind of bad for the cults is all you can do is salivate over like the top, the 10 best defensive linemen or the 10 best linebackers because you're not going to draft any in the first round. So it's almost like, oh, that guy's great, but I can't look at him because he's going to be gone by the time we draft. So it's like you've got to look into that lower tier and you may even have to look at guys that aren't even at the combine in order to be able to get somebody that you want. And so it's going to be a tougher job for the Colts this year, just not having that first rounder. But, I mean, in the NFL, usually if you get drafted fourth round, fifth round, you're making the team. Usually.

Usually. Usually, yeah. Usually you're making the team. So there's still good talent to find, you know. But how has Chris Ballard done on his fifth round picks? Are there still a bunch of them on this football team? He's actually been pretty solid with day three. And we can talk more about that in the next segment.

There you go. Yeah. Now his scouts have been very good. They've found hits. I mean, Derek was mentioning the 2023 draft class, and you could argue that some of his better picks came on day three with Jalen Jones and Atatomiwa. Adiore.

They were better than his top two picks in that draft, you know? So, yeah, he has had some good luck with day three. And that's credit to the scouts. Scouts do a lot of the day three draft picking. But yeah, like you said, Alan, like it sucks that you miss out in the Sunny Styles, right? A guy who I think we are all convinced is going to be one darn. good football player in the NFL, one of the best college football players this past season as well. But I do like, again, the depth of linebacker where, like, yes, you'll miss out on a sunny

style. You might miss out on Jake Gold Day, too, from Cincinnati, very good player. But, I mean, we're even looking at guys like Jacob Rodriguez won the best against a player in college football this past year. He should be there at 47. He's a little bit smaller. I thought he had a great workout today. I was going to ask if that changed anything for him with Rodriguez because he really, I mean,

there are athleticism concerns right or at least there were but after you watched them today you thought wait what yeah it's more i think it's more in just the arm length concerns and a little bit older as well but again we're talking about the the best of the best here right so part of the combine and we'll get into this more in the next segment uh it's just separating stuff like if you have guys right next to each other and how you grade each up great them out maybe the guy with slightly longer arms like you take a little because you just has a little bit more margin for error you know but you're not going to make it like i have you know alan pink it as a fit round running back and I have Herschel Walker as a first round running back, but because Alan ran a

four four, you know, like I'm not going to jump them above these guys here. But I think if guys are right next to each other and you have like, hey, historically linebackers with 32 inch arms succeed more than linebackers with 30 inch arms, that's when you separate guys in that same bucket, that same tier. But you're not going to replace a blue chip guy with a red guy just because a faster 40 and stuff. So there is value to the combine. It gets a little overvalued because it's such a TV thing right now.

But it is so fun. Like, again, like a Jacob Rodriguez, seeing guys hit benchmarks we didn't expect and surpassing expectations and maybe climbing boards in our minds is really the best part of the combine. Yeah, with, I'm just partial to Jacob Rodriguez because of the mustache.

But that's incredible. That's a guy that I've been thinking about more than I think of. But I do think that I feel. like sometimes sometimes guys are so good in college that it's almost to their detriment, like the fact that they were so productive and maybe they're not the twitchiest guys, you know what I mean?

Or the speediest guys. And sometimes I think we sometimes I think we overthinking. I mean, I know that obviously Colston Loveland closed the season really well, right? In the second half of the year, he showed some of the promise. But remember the first half of the year we were talking about, hey, here's the productive guy. Here's the other guy that you took a flyer on. And I guess that's the ideal situation where both players look like they're going to be really good NFL tight ends.

But Zach, I think you would agree. I mean, I think sometimes all of us, even these people that do this for a living for NFL teams sometimes overthink these things. Yeah, and we've all had famous misses and hits with the overthinking doing this. NFL teams have that as well. I just think ultimately, I think you're in good company when you're betting on non-outliers, right? When you're betting on guys who fit into molds and a lot of combine testing is making sure guys

hit thresholds, right? I've listened to some really good podcast and analysis lately where it's like, hey, a receiver running a 4-2 versus one running a 4-4, there's not much difference in that with those guys because they're hitting that threshold you're looking for. But a receiver running a 4-4 versus running a 4-8, for instance, we have a lot of guys who run 4-4s and are successful in the NFL. We don't have many 4-8 guys, right? Unless we're going to make up that Jerry Rice story again. No chance he ran that slow, but we've got to keep making that up. And we've got to be. gurgitating it so we can have somebody who ran that slow. So it's about hitting thresholds.

Like if you like a guy's film and they're not testing like a historically awful athlete, even if they are, like look into what happened to them that week. Shaquille Leonard tested like one of the worst linebackers in Combine history. But the Colts drafted him high partly because he went out there and competed with the flu or with an illness, I think is what it was. And even though he tested like crap, he went out there and did every single drill. And the Colts love that. They looked into that and they were like, you know what?

You didn't put your best numbers out there, but you were competing in an environment where so much of this is like agentized, you know, where it's like the agents say if you're not 120%. Don't go out there. You're going to put bad numbers out there. Leonard still went out there. And that impressed the Colts to taking him in the top 40. And we'd be talking about a Hall of Fame linebacker if he stayed healthy. So yes, there are outliers you can bet on for certain reasons. but traditionally a lot of the combine is to make sure that you're not betting on too many outliers

because outliers exist for a reason. You know, and then the problem with the combine is you can't measure a guy's heart. And I would say baseball, most people think of baseball as the inventor of metrics and all these measurables. But football's had these metrics for years. So, yes, you can fit into a box. I need a linebacker to be this size, this speed, jump this high. I mean, all that stuff does fit into the box of what is going to be successful. And every now and then, there's somebody who breaks the mold.

but all those metrics, it just, they do tend to overthink it a lot of times when most of the time, all you got to do is turn on the tape. How does the dude play? Yeah, and Shaquille Leonard definitely broke the mold, right? Because the dude's a freak in a good way. We come back on the Colt Squad Show. What traits do the Colts like in a prospect? What sort of measurables do they usually target?

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Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire. This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. And we're back on the Locked on Colts show alongside Zach Hicks of Lockedon Colts. Former NFL or Alan Pinkett. I'm Derek Schultz. Jake Arthur will join us for a future show catching up on some work and turning out the content over at Lockdown Colts.

If you follow along on all the socials and, of course, follow along the podcast channel. and our YouTube channel and everything else. So we have a large sample size here. This should be a fairly easy question to answer, even though, of course, there are exceptions to the rule of who the Colts like. You know, we've seen them step out before and draft sick, freak athletes. And we've seen them kind of go the opposite way in some of those draft picks as well. I remember a lot of people being shocked with the Justin Wally selection last year, right, as one of those.

but while knowing that this isn't like a hard and fast rules, Zach, can you put into terms for the listening audience just kind of what the Colts usually look for now that we've had, you know, nine years of a sample size for Chris Bowerd. And I know some of the names and faces and the scouting staff have changed, but largely the guy at the head of the table is obviously still the guy in charge. Yeah, I think there's a lot of stuff behind the scenes that the Colts particularly look for in their draft prospects. I think the Combine event is one that Chris Bauer and his staff would never miss.

I think this is what, the Jacksonville Jaguars staff is not here this week because they're focusing on other things and they're not as value, like valuing the combine as much as other teams. I don't think that's something the Colts would ever do because they do value a lot of those pre-draft interviews. They value, I've seen Colts scouts in attendance for the media sessions before, just watching how guys answer media questions and do a lot of this. So there's more than just the on-field measurements that the Colts are evaluating during this week. and they want to see how these guys compete. Sometimes the quantity of drills and on-field drills they do is very important for the Colts too, right? Like I said with Shaquille Leonard,

like the fact that he did every drill was very important to them, you know, seeing him go out there and do every single one. But I think if we were going to put like a base drill that the Colts certainly value, I did an article on this about two years ago, I think, for horseshoe huddle. They have particularly valued the broad jump. And I personally, I think the broad jump is one of the more valuable drills

that you can do. It tests just that lower body explosion, exploding forward, more so than the vertical jump where you're jumping straight up. Broad jump, you're starting low and exploding forward. And the Colts have typically drafted guys in that 80th percentile or higher. Now, I think most teams would probably fall into that as well because you want to draft great athletes to play in the NFL, but they certainly like looking at that. And then if we're looking at certain positions, you know, we have pretty good outlines of what Ballard likes at some positions. Like at offensive tackle, we know he likes the big boys there. You know, we know six foot seven plus, like six foot six plus, well over 300 pounds.

Weirdly enough, arm length isn't a big decider, but he likes super, super athletes on the O line at offensive tackle, whether it's your Jalen Travis's who are all-time great athletes, Baron Hart Ryman, one of the greatest athletes we've ever seen at the position, so many different guys. that Jake Witt was one of the greatest to ever test of the position. They never played it down for the Colts, but they took them still because of that testing and that size. But then there are other positions that are a little bit up in the air and they change a lot. I've noticed that Ballard does kind of mold his types at each positions to fit his coaching staffs. And like you said, Derek, we have 10 years of Chris Ballard data at this point.

But with those 10 years, we have, what, two different head coaches, three different if you count Jeff Saturday, but you shouldn't really count him in this part of it. Three different defensive coordinators. And we kind of see these mold change with each guy, right? So if we're looking at what Chris Ballard has valued at wide receiver, for instance, right? We're drafting Alec Pierce Pierce, Pierce, Piers, these big contested catch wide receivers under Frank Reich. And then what kind of receivers are we drafting under Shane Stuyken?

A.D. Mitchell, Josh Downs, Anthony Gould, separators, guys who run routes, get open. So it's hard to say, like, which one is Chris Ballard, right? Because he's drafting for his coaching staff. So you have to adjust a bit with the coaching staff. You can also look at defensive end with this too, right? Early on with Maddie Rufluis, he's drafting Ben Banagou, Kamoko Ture. Even, like, you can even throw like a quitty pay in there, right?

Kind of smaller speed rushers. What does he do with his first year with, with Luana Rumo? JT2 and Malo, this massive, massive defensive tackle slash defensive end type, who just looks like a Lou and a Rumo defense event. So I think if you try to go position by position, which I've done in the past 10 years, a lot of it is ever changing. But the consistent fact of this is the Colts like guys who show the competitiveness to show up and do drills here, unless they're injured, like coming here and do your drills,

show that willingness to compete. And they value explosiveness. They really do value explosiveness, especially that broad jump, I think, is a very important, one. I think league-wide, the agilities are very important as well. The Colts haven't traditionally valued it as much, I think, is somewhere around the league, but the agilitys are very important. But certainly like that broad jump and explosiveness. Also, arm length, they do like length and wingspan as well. It just lessens that margin for error at some of these positions. They like it at most positions outside of tackle. For some reason,

at tackle, they're fine with it being lower. But I would say if you really want to look at one drill, look at that broad jump. up is a very important one for the Colts. I guess if they are looking at the long arm thing, just look for, if you, if you, if you have short arms and love going on a roller coaster, you're not going to get drafted by the Colts, but you've got long arms to ride your roller coaster and like to hold your arms up, get off to roller coaster. Yeah.

Anyway, I think, you call it mold, Zach. I would say every team has a certain style of player, and I'll give you an example. I look at a guy, and I got to go way back just because that's when I paid attention. But a guy like Warren sat, he could never play for the Washington team or for the Dallas Cowboys, or for that matter, the Kansas City Chiefs, because they want a more strong. streamlined athletic type of guy. They don't want a nasty looking, you know, every player who plays for the cowboys look good in their swimsuit, all right.

All right. But, you know, sometimes guys will just be all big and thick and sloppy, but they can run. They can move and they'll knock your ass out, all right? But they don't necessarily look like it. Some teams just stay away from that style. Another thing that I've always seen, there are some teams that will predominantly draft from certain universities. Now, I guess with the Colts, I see two Notre Dame guys, but I know the Giants love picking Notre Dame guys. There are certain schools that, you know, will go more towards the HBCUs and get players from there.

You know, and it does differ a little bit with whosoever the coach in charge, you know, that regime in terms of the type of players they get. Because, yes, I did notice, you know, the 23 draft, you didn't have a tall, leaky receiver. Yeah, you had Josh Downs, you know. But it's all to say, each team has an idea of the top. of player they want, the type of personality of player, the, the, whatever they're getting from the school that they went to. And now, all that's going to change with all this NIL, you know, because the players are jumping from team to team to team. But I just, I could always count on somebody from Notre Dame going to the Giants. Yeah. But now it looks like, you know, like the Seahawks, Carolina Panthers prefer more of a guy like that. But, and I say all that because I can't answer what the Colts look for because I haven't studied it enough.

I haven't focused enough on what a Chris Ballard likes. But when I do just from a 30,000 foot view, look at it, there's not one particular university he likes to go to to get his players, you know, from an athletic standpoint. It looks like he does like guys with good skill and technique and good measurables. It looks like that. And it looks like he likes guys that look good in a swimsuit, too. You know, not all teams are into that. Some teams, they want a nasty-looking, you know, guy who wants to be in the bar at 3 a.m. fighting everybody,

that type of guy, you know. But the Colts style, I guess, has, you know, worked well in terms of they're right in the mix, you know, it seems like, you know, but what do you have to do to get over the top? And I think to get over the top, you got a hit on your first and second rounders, not your fifth rounders. That's true. I mean, yeah, it helps to hit on the day of three picks, but it really helps the hit on this first and second.

I will want to add one thing, and this doesn't really have to do with the combine, but in terms of like Ballard types, one thing I've noticed the last two drafts with this Wild West NIL era that we're in, right? Aside from A.D. Mitchell, Ballard has predominantly drafted guys who have stayed at one university throughout their whole four or five years in college. And then if they do transfer, he likes guys like Jalen Travis who made the jump from, I believe, Yale or Princeton up to Iowa State, right?

Where it's like that FCS to FBS jump or group of five to power five jump, right? So I would say keep an eye on that with all this NIL stuff where like if you look at all of his draft picks in the last two years, right, like I guess a lot to transfer, but that was because he had to medically retire and he had to find a new place to play, right? But if you look at a lot of these other guys, they stuck it out with who they've been with these last two drafts. And I remember him in particular talking about Justin Wally and really liking that about Justin Wally last draft cycle. So I think that is a valuable part of their process right now, or at least if they are getting a sense of why a guy transferred,

they're understanding it's more than just for the money, you know, than doing it. There's a reason. There's a trait there that he, he, likes that he feels is going to make them, you know, more competitive and a better player. Yeah, it's still early in calling that a trend with them. But I'm roughly saying that that's a trend with them right now. Yeah, yeah. I like trait because trend is, we would definitely see it.

Right, right. It's, it's trending towards, it's trending towards a treat. Yeah, right. Well, let me tell you guys, it's Hale 40 years ago. an exciting young prospect who shattered the record books at college football's most famous program was in New Orleans, Louisiana, auditioning for NFL teams. We'll talk all about it. First-hand experience of Alan Pinkin when we come back and wrap up the Colt Squad Show next. This portion of the Cold Squad Show brought you by Home Chef.

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Back for a final time here on the Locked On Cold Squad Show. Thanks so much for joining us on NFL Combine Week alongside Alan Pink and at Zach Hicks. I'm Derek Schultz. And Alan, I just want you to pretend like we are in your living room right now. Zach and I are sitting crisscross applesauce on the rug. Maybe there's a fire going and it's story time. And I want to hear all about the experience of the NFL combine in 1986 New Orleans

because I would imagine it's very different from what we've seen in the modern era here in Indianapolis. Well, it is a lot different. And you've got to think back, damn, that is 40 years, isn't it? It seems like yesterday, but when you look at preparation for the combine back then compared to preparation now, guys now will actually go out and hire a track coach to learn how to run a 40. Or they'll get some kind of personal trainer so that they can excel in all the different drills that they run at the combine. where back in my day, we would go to the wait room and just do a little bit of running because we wanted to be fresh for the combine. But the experience itself, you know, I would say there was great camaraderie because number one, you have to be chosen to go to the combine.

So there's not all this, you know, when I was with that group of running backs, there wasn't that, you know, rivalry with anybody. Hey, we all trying to get a job, damn it. So, you know, we all got along well. And I guess it ends up being about, what, 30 or 40 of each position. One thing that guys didn't like was when they had to strip down to their shorts and go in the room and take that picture. The famous Tom Brady picture, right? Yeah. Some guys felt that that was less than humane.

and I remember a couple guys complaining about it. And all I said was, well, at least you're going to get something out of doing it. But they were looking at any imperfection that you may have had, you know. And the other thing that was so neat was, if you had like a little teeny injury in high school that you didn't really talk about, they knew about it. Oh, yeah. They go into so much depth about what. injuries you've had, you know, what potentially could be wrong with you. And they'll ask you for in that room. We didn't have a personality test when I was coming through. And I can't even remember

what the damn thing is called. Wonderlich? Yeah, the Wonderlic. We didn't have a Wonderlic. But, I mean, I think it has its value because you do want to see. what you're getting in terms of intellect. But one of the things I'll say is the game has progressed so much, you know, that you got to be able to think on your feet, because where the game has come from, we would break the huddle, come up to the line of scrimmage,

and the quarterback might audible to a play. But now they come up to the line of scrimmage. They might have three or four plays, called and then they might audible to something else. You know, so you got to have it upstairs to be able to play. That's why I always thought that Notre Dame guys worked pretty good because they had two jobs in school. They had to play football and go to class.

But there's other schools. There's other schools that did well with that. I felt pretty good going to the combine. You know, we have a section where we have to do weightlifting. and look, I started lifting weights, you know, I don't want to say it because it sounds bad, but let's just say prior to puberty is when I started lifting weights. So we have this one drill where we got to do 225 as many times as possible. And I was able to knock it out like 22 times, usually.

It's either 21 or 22 times. The only guy that beat me was this full back. from Mississippi State. I think he did it 25 times. And I just remember, what's his name, John Rathman, you know, big stripping fullback. He did 225, six times.

Is that Tom Rathman? Tom Rathman, thank you. Colts legend here, Colts coach here. Yeah, yeah. He did it six times. But when you watch Tom Rathman play, he looked like he benched the building. You know, he played strong,

but he only, and maybe he just didn't want to tip his hands. or make it look like he was too strong. And I also remember getting ready to run to 40. And it's, I think back then, it was no more of the stopwatch. So you had a variation of times. It was fully automatic time, you know, so it was more accurate. So 448 was, you know,

one of the faster times. But there was this one guy in my class who happened to run a 4-1. He didn't do it at the Combine, but he ran a fully automatic 4-1-4. You know who that guy was? Is this Darrell Green or who is this? Bo Jackson.

Bo Jackson, yeah. Okay. I would say one of those two, right? Because you had two of the fastest human beings ever in that era of football, yeah. And he was way in like between 220, in 230. Right.

Right. And so, you know, the way the combine works, sometimes you can be good enough to where you can just skip the drills. But if you're looking to, you know, up your draft stock, you've got to go do those drills. You've got to go do that stuff that's going to hopefully, you know, go from, you know, fifth round to third round. and the entire goal, your entire college career is getting drafted in the first round.

You know that if you get drafted in the first round and have a good, successful first contract, that second contract, you're going to be set up for life. Yeah. Did they have fifth-year options back then, too? They didn't. Okay, because nowadays it's even more important, right? If you get that fifth-year option, which is a good pay date. and another year of security in the NFL.

So it's so valuable to get that first round. Yeah. And the thing that I've seen, and I think the fifth year is an option now because they're starting to give guaranteed money. You know, 100 years ago when I played, the only thing that was guaranteed was your signing bonus. So it didn't matter if you had a 10-year contract.

In fact, you'd be a fool to have a 10-year contract. Because if they cut you in the year, three, you can kiss those other seven years goodbye. But I just remember about the combine that everybody was in a pretty good mood, but everybody was, you know, real eager to put their best foot forward because everybody's trying to get a job and everybody's trying to get up in that first round. And I had thoughts about possibility going into first round when the final player rankings came out. I think I was listed as either the number 19 or number 20 player on ESPN's board.

I think I was the second or third highest rated running back. Bo Jackson was number one. Bo Jackson was the number one rated player in the draft. And the problem with all that is none of that means a damn thing. Because what you know about the draft is you can't count on any of the that. So I ended up being the 13th back taken. I was a 61st player taken in the third round. And that's one of the things I always kept in the back of my head was I'm going to beat out every single one of these guys that were drafted ahead of me. And the only guy that really, there were two guys

that lasted longer than me in the league. One of them was Keith Byers, but he turned into a tight end somewhere in there. And Ronnie Harmon. Well, all he was, did his play on third down. He wasn't a full-time back. So, you know, my goal was I need to play in the league longer than these guys to say that y'all made a mistake, not drafting me. But, you know, I was fortunate enough to be on a team that had enough running back depth that I wasn't carrying it 20 times a game. So I was pretty fresh. And by the time I did become a full-time starter, you know, I had gotten to the peak of my athleticism and it was able to be shown on on the field.

But it all goes back to, man, just, you know, one of the things that happened in the combat, and I felt so good that I left my bags in the airport at the gate I was at and walked off somewhere and, you know, got some food and was just happy. And when I came back, somebody stole my plane ticket. Oh, man. Wow. So I had to, uh, I actually had to, you know, plead with the people at the gate about how my plane ticket was stolen. And then I actually had to call the people back at the combine for them to issue me another ticket. But they did it. And I thought, you know what? They're going to think I'm such a dumbass because I lost my plane ticket. But I didn't lose it. Somebody took it. And I saw that as a

potential strike against my intellect because I can't. hold on to a plane ticket. So I was a little worried. Yeah. It's a big job interview the whole week. Yeah. Exactly. And the biggest thing, I guess people, you know, what I heard from a lot of scouts was I was a PR dream for any football team because I did, you know, talk a lot and I made sure, well, my parents made sure I didn't speak broken English and spoke with some damn sense. Yeah. I do want to say something real quick, Shane Gregory in our comments section saying his stepdad was a huge fan of yours, Alan. So while we're going down memory lane here, giving a shout out to Allen's fans here in the comments. You got to be old.

You got to be a fan of mine. Derek, do we have his numbers or at least there's unofficial numbers? Like, can we find them online? I just tried to find them and I could. I figured you would. Yeah. Yeah, they didn't have. I actually wanted to hear from the Mississippi State dude and what happened to him, too.

But I couldn't find anything, 1986 NFL drafts. Combine results. I did find that draft list, and there were a lot of good players in that draft, but there was only one Hall of Famer. Do you know who the one Hall of Famer was, Alan, by chance? I'm putting you on the spot a little bit. Oh, wow. One running back or one player? One player ended up in the Hall of Fame. I mean, there were, you know, Jim Everett, Bo Jackson, Leslie O'Neill, Will Wolford, who played here, Ernest Givens, who was a teammate of yours, Alan. There were a lot of good players, but only one Hall of Famer. I'll give you a hint. Besides Tom Brady, when you think of him, I think you think of all the rings.

Oh, the 49ers guy, Haley? Yeah, Charles Haley. Charles Haley. Yeah, look at me. So 28 years young and I got that. There you go. Charles Haley had to remind me, you know, he's from Virginia also. Oh, I didn't know that.

And he had to remind me that we played in the Virginia high school All-Star game together. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. The 96th pick of that draft. How about that? Yeah. Pretty cool there. James Madison.

So, I mean, he's a true home boy. So, yeah, he went to James Madison. But yep, yep. That's not a bad claim to fame. Kurt Signetti and Charles Paley. That's pretty good. And Zach Hicks. Zach Hicks was there for one semester, baby.

One semester. JMU is, they have just a famous alumni down there at JMU. Look at what you made of yourself, Zach. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, amazing story. I'm sure the folks in admissions at JMU are regretting the decision in all things. I got a C plus in world history when that semester. I mean, fantastic, right? I mean, I'm just killing it. Well, we're always getting straight A's here on the squad show. Thanks so much for joining us on this latest edition. We'll be back with you Tuesday night at 9 o'clock as we

tie a bow on the combine and move forward to March, guys. That's when the news really starts in, right? The franchise tag results with that window closing, impending free agency, of course. And as always, the Colts news cycle never really goes quiet even in the offseason. So keep it locked on Jake and Zach every day on Lockdown Colts. Be sure to follow us at Lockdown Colts on socials and check out the other great content on YouTube and TikTok. And we'll see you next time right here on the squad show.