Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts: Quarterbacks Ready to Put On a Show at NFL Scouting Combine

Starting point is 00:00:00 The NFL scouting combine is upon us and we're going to tell you what's most important for the Colts this week. Let's get to it. You are locked on Colts. Your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your team every day. What's up, everybody? Thank you for tuning in and making us your first listen of the day. This is your daily podcast covering your Indianapolis Colts, part of the Locked On Podcast Network,

Starting point is 00:00:47 your team every day. I am Jake Arthur, know Zach today. He's actually en route to Indy right now, so we're going to bring you guys a ton of coverage this week from the Combine. Talk to some other media people, so you kind of get the gauge on what the Colts are doing nationally from that perspective. Talk to some players. Just kind of bring you the Colts are doing nationally from that perspective. Talk to some players. Just kind of bring you the information that we're hearing from Indy.

Starting point is 00:01:10 So make sure to hit subscribe wherever you're watching or listening. If you are not already, hopefully you already are. But we would love you guys to join us today. Obviously, it's all about the combine. What the Colts want to watch for at certain positions. Chris Ballard definitely has his types at each position. And then what the quarterbacks are doing, obviously, there's the big four. We've kind of got some developments on them. But first, a little Colts news for you. So the beginning of the week, some of the information we've all been waiting for,

Starting point is 00:01:41 who are going to be some of these position coaches coaches coming in for the Colts. So, so far new offensive line coach being reported from Art Stapleton out there in New York. It's not Roy Istvan from the Eagles. So we're, we got to check on Zach on that one. It is reportedly assistant Giants assistant offensive line coach, Tony Sperano Jr. He's of course, the son of Tony Sperano, the longtime legendary offensive line coach throughout the NFL. Sperano Jr. is only 36, but he's actually been coaching in the NFL since 2011, including each of the last two years with the Panthers and Giants. He's been an assistant O-line coach. He's actually been an assistant O-line coach for six years now. So that's, you know, he's a bit experienced.

Starting point is 00:02:30 Maybe not as experienced as some of the other guys that have been circled, but he's been there, done that so far. He's not been, you know, sole offensive line coach before, but apparently they're going for a young guy. So he's actually not worked with new Colts head coach Shane Steichen before. So I'm just kind of looking at some connections. The Colts reported running backs coach is DeAndre Smith from the Giants. So perhaps Smith put in a good word and, you know, Steichen took notice and liked what he saw.

Starting point is 00:02:59 We don't know. We'll definitely make sure to ask Steichen about some of these coaching changes. If the Colts haven't announced those changes yet, they might be kind of tight-lipped and not acknowledge some of the things that have been reported, but we'll see there. Also, defensive coordinator Gus Bradley is staying on board. Another report on that one. That's not really a big shock. We've anticipated that one for a while. Bradley and Stike can go back to their days with the Chargers. They were reportedly close, had a great working relationship there. So that's exactly what we expected.

Starting point is 00:03:34 So no big shocker there. So something Zach definitely had been mentioning on Twitter lately in relation to the Colts and the Combine. It's something I've worked on before. Zach's got his build a Ballard series that he does every off season. So Colts GM, Chris Ballard, like I said earlier, he has types that he likes at,

Starting point is 00:03:55 at each position group. So we've kind of circled some of the main ones here, but just to provide a background, really, they go for guys with size and athleticism pretty much above all else. If you're getting drafted by Chris Ballard in the Colts, you're going to have to have some sort of unique trait, whether that's your size, explosiveness, athleticism, whatever it is. Last year's class was like historically athletic. Their relative athletic scores, their RASs were all like at least 9.3 or 9.4 or something,

Starting point is 00:04:30 just a really phenomenally athletic class. So Zach kind of broke a lot of this down. The average RAS score of all of Ballard's draft picks with the Colts has been 8.43, which is considered elite. Again, that Valencia size and athleticism. Among Ballard's round one, two, and three picks, that average kicks up to 9.09. So if you're going to get picked early by the Colts, you've got to have great athletic scores and at least adequate size to go with it.

Starting point is 00:05:01 He's only drafted two players with a poor Raz ranking, and he's done 31 with an elite level. That's 58%. For this exercise, Zach excluded Shaquille Leonard, who probably would have tested in the elite level. I certainly got the hype for it as well, but he got hurt early in his combine workout, which kind of kicked out his scores. He went through his testing, but his testing went really poorly and was really uncharacteristic of a guy of Leonard's athleticism, of course. As for a position like wide receiver, which is something that's always on the board with the Colts, and we could look to see them adjust again this year because, of course, you can never have too many receivers.

Starting point is 00:05:46 You're getting a new quarterback. It's obviously going to be helpful. Ballard has never drafted a receiver that was under 5'11 or under 200 pounds. So keep an eye on that when looking at these receivers when you see them work out over the weekend. As for, let's see, common traits for them, height, weight, explosion. So they're going to have, you know, 10 yard splits are going to be high, vertical and broad jumps are going to be high as well. So keep an eye on that. As for quarter cornerbacks, he's never, he's only drafted one with arms under 32 inches long. It was really one reason he wasn't in love with Kenny Moore when he got there

Starting point is 00:06:26 was because of his, I think he's what, 5'10", 5'9", or something. But Kenny's got abnormally long arms, which makes up for it. So that arm length contributes to overall length. You know, sure, they want him to be tall, but they have to be able to, you know, they have to be able to bat away passes against taller receivers. They've also got to have great size and physicality. If you look at any cornerback that the Colts have drafted, maybe some of the guys, the free agents have been a little different, but any of the guys they've drafted, they all like to tackle. I mean, Isaiah Rogers is what, like 5'10", 180, and he's out there and he's one of their highest effort tacklers out there.

Starting point is 00:07:07 So regardless of size, you're going to have to tackle and be a little physical if you're going to be a corner that's taken by the Colts. All of the edge defenders have a vertical of at least 34 inches and their arms have been at least 33 inches. So length, explosiveness, and size there. Ballard really likes raw athletic guys that he can just sit there at the edge and kind of develop them and see what they're able to learn and pick up from the coaches. It hasn't always had a great hit rate, but it looks like Quidipe and Dayo Adango are certainly trending in the right direction there. As for offensive linemen, really the most common trait there is they've got to have freak athleticism. You know, they've got to test really well athletically and they often don't bring in guys who don't hit all the size measurements.

Starting point is 00:07:59 You know, their arms have to be, you know, 33 inches or 32, 33 inches. You know, they have to have a nice blend of, of size and weight. Bernard Ryman was kind of an outlier to that because his arms were just like a tick lower than what you would want for an offensive tackle, but it is what it is. It's not a huge detriment to him so far. So again, just to kind of go over that wide receivers, height, weight explosion, you're going to look for those guys. If you're seeing a receiver out there running late four fives, four sixes, probably not going to happen. Guys under 5'10 or so, probably not going to happen.

Starting point is 00:08:36 Cornerbacks is kind of the same. They've got to have that size and length. The speed isn't as big of a deal because I think they want to rely on them more being physical at the point of attack with receivers. So they don't have to have that catch-up speed as much. And then again, defensive line and offensive line, just athleticism, you know, out the wazoo basically. But before we put a bow on things today, we want to talk to you guys about FanDuel, which is America's number one sportsbook. The midway point of the NBA season is here and past. All-star break is gone. And now's

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Starting point is 00:09:44 you go to FanDuel.com slash locked on that's fanduel.com slash locked on to learn more make every moment more with fanduel an official sports betting partner of the nba so uh with the draft it kind of feels like nothing else matters until the quarterback is taken with this first pick. So if we're talking about some Colts news, this is kind of Colts related. It came out on Monday morning that the Chicago Bears, who hold the number one pick in the draft, they've taken a lot of calls apparently for that first overall pick. The Colts pick in the top five, they need a quarterback and no one seems to know, you know, there's just varying degrees of who's the top quarterback. I would, you know, it would be interesting to see if there were three or four teams that had the same top two, top three quarterbacks.

Starting point is 00:10:38 Even you can make a strong argument for each of Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson and Will Levis. I could see why any team might not like some of those guys or why they might be in love with them. So maybe the Colts are one of those teams that have been calling to try and get up to number one or at least see what it might cost. I think a lot of us have been kind of projecting that it might take a Colts player to be involved in that mix if the Colts are going to move up because of that familiarity with Matt Eberflus. You've got guys like Kenny Moore, DeForest Buckner, Shaquille Leonard.

Starting point is 00:11:13 How realistic it is that the Colts would want to move any of those guys, I don't know. Michael Pittman is another name that's been involved. The Bears never really seem to have a good full-stack receiving core. So keep an eye on that. That's at least something we're going to want to watch because the Combine is probably the NFL event on the calendar that has the most wheeling and dealing going with it. There's agents are in town.

Starting point is 00:11:37 There's a lot of players there. All team personnel are there. There's a lot of communicating, a lot of deals done, unofficially done during the Combine. So we'll keep an eye on that one there. There's a lot of communicating, a lot of deals done, unofficially done during the combine. So we'll keep an eye on that one there. As for these quarterbacks, we're starting to learn more about what some of these guys are or aren't going to do here in Indy during the combine. So Bryce Young, who's probably most people's top quarterback, he's not going to work out, which if you've been watching us, we kind of anticipated that because his biggest question mark is his size right so he's probably going to want to put more

Starting point is 00:12:11 weight on and if he tries to show up weigh him 200 pounds or so a lot of that's going to be water weight and it's probably not going to lead to the best workout possible so let's just say he comes to indie he meets with teams doesn't work out but you know, he sticks to his measurables. And then whenever he has his pro day in the next month or so, he can get back to his more natural weight and then, you know, work out then and then post better score. So that does make sense if he decides to stick to those measurements he had in Indy, not measure again at his pro day, but does work out. It makes a lot of sense. It looks like CJ Stroud, Will Levis, and Anthony Richardson, they're all going to work out.

Starting point is 00:12:54 That makes sense for all those guys. Stroud, he's always had a thing about his athleticism. Getting this plugged in. So Stroud's always had a thing about athleticism. And up until that Georgia game, a lot of people questioned it. But I mean, after that, he clearly showed that he could do it. So if he goes out there and performs really well athletically,

Starting point is 00:13:17 I think that'll answer a lot of people's questions about him. Anthony Richardson, people expect him to work out well, but if he has some sort of other worldly workout, then it's going to be really hard to ignore and it could lock him into the top 10. We'll see. Will Levis as well, athletic guy. If he can establish that he's really athletic or even outperform what some people think he's going to do, that could lock him in, make teams feel a little better about him. Cause I mean, his tape is there. He was kind of a wild, a wildcat quarterback when he was at Penn state before transferring to Kentucky. So, I mean, there, there's not much

Starting point is 00:13:54 questions about his athleticism there. Plus he's got a really live arm, same thing for Anthony Richardson. So yeah, I mean, that's pretty much it. That's a lot of things to watch out for from a Colts perspective this week at the combine. Zach and I are going to prepare for the week tonight. He's going to get into town Monday and we're going to kind of get our ducks in a row, get prepared for the week so we can make sure to bring you guys the best content possible. So no show tomorrow, but we'll be back with you on Wednesday. Follow at least no show tomorrow, but we'll be back with you on Wednesday. Follow at least no show tomorrow morning. If something comes up, we definitely might feel compelled to give you something in the afternoon.

Starting point is 00:14:38 So go ahead and follow at LockedOnColts, at JakeArthurNFL, and at ZachHicks2 on Twitter. Also subscribe to LockedOnColts on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts. We'd also love your ratings and reviews. That helps us get up the charts there. And thank you again for making Locked on Colts your first listen every day. Now make your second listen to Locked on NFL Draft podcast. Damian Parson and Keith Sanchez provide in-depth coverage of the biggest NFL draft prospects with deep dives into the sleepers and hidden gems that can change your favorite NFL franchise. Find Locked On NFL Draft wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.

Starting point is 00:15:10 Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. We'll see you guys this week.

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Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts: Quarterbacks Ready to Put On a Show at NFL Scouting Combine

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