A week and a half ago, Colts’ defensive coordinator Gus Bradley said that the team wasn’t close to making a decision at safety. However, after the first preseason game last Sunday and two days of joint practices, there seems to be some clarity around that decision.
In Sunday’s preseason opener against Denver, we saw Nick Cross tasked with playing both free safety and strong safety. The results were mixed with Cross playing well deep but having issues closer to the line of scrimmage.
“He played free safety and strong safety, and I thought free safety, just like you said, he showed up,” said Bradley on Tuesday. “His angles were better. He had a couple of racer tackles. His leverage was better. His vision of the quarterback. His plant and break back there was better. So that part was cool to see.”
During Wednesday’s first joint practice with Arizona, Nate Atkins of the Indy Star wrote that, again, Cross was tasked with filling both roles, rotating free and strong safety responsibilities with Julian Blackmon.
However, on Thursday, Atkins added in his post-practice breakdown that there was no longer a rotation for Cross, and instead, he worked solely as the free safety with the starters for the entirety of that practice–perhaps a sign that Cross has a firm grasp on that starting spot.
After a 2023 season filled with inconsistent play at the deep safety position, the Colts are banking heavily on the internal development of their young players to help elevate the play on the back-end of the secondary with no outside additions made this offseason.
It took some time for Cross to emerge as their best option to pair with Blackmon, but the Colts tried just about every possible combination that they had on the roster.
At various points throughout training camp, we’ve seen Cross, Rodney Thomas, and Ronnie Harrison all take starting free safety snaps. As alluded to, the Colts have even experimented with moving Blackmon to free safety–despite him coming off a career year at strong safety–with either Cross and Harrison as the strong safety, in an effort to find the best possible combination of players at the position.
Cross’ play the last week has helped him standout and put him in a position to seize control of the starting free safety role. However, ultimately, it will be consistency from down-to-down and game-to-game that will matter and what will provide some needed stability at the deep safety position.
“I mean, we could talk about you’ve got to be a good eraser, tackler, and all that, but it really comes down to trust,” Bradley said at the start of camp. “You know, do the guys in front of you, do they look back, and do they trust that you have the skill set to get it done, and can you get it done? And that breeds confidence.
“They love all the guys back there competing, but really, you’re looking for the respect of the whole unit, and that’s just by making plays.”