Colts position recap: Safeties

Review of the 2023 season

Similar to the cornerback group, the Colts’ safeties were young. Of the players to take a snap this season, no one besides Julian Blackmon was in the NFL before 2022.

Even Blackmon was going to go through some growing pains of his own. After playing free safety for the first three years of his career, Blackmon moved to strong safety in 2023. He went on to lead the team in passes defended (eight) and interceptions (four).

“I thought Julian Blackmon played really good football this year,” general manager Chris Ballard said. “It sucked when he got hurt, that hurt – it did when we lost him. I thought he played excellent football. Moving (Ronnie) Harrison Jr., we kind of put him at linebacker for a while – he was kind of almost like a dime linebacker for a while and then we kicked him back to safety. I thought like everything, fortunate to have him because I thought he played pretty good football when he went in there. But he just hadn’t been playing a lot of safety up to that point, but I thought he played pretty good football.”

At free safety, it was primarily second-year players Rodney Thomas II and Nick Cross who held down the fort.

“I do think we’ve got to get more consistency out of the free safety position,” Ballard said. “That’s not quite a knock, because they’re both young players. Thomas had some good moments, Cross had some really good moments but we need more consistent moments from that position.”