One of the more important training camp battles that will take place this summer for the Colts is at the safety position.
While from the outside looking in it appears to be a two-man race between Nick Cross and Rodney Thomas, GM Chris Ballard mentioned another name to keep our eyes on as training camp unfolds: Ronnie Harrison.
“Harrison played good ball for us too last year and we played him both at linebacker and safety, and he started at safety in this league, a bunch of games, and played good football,” said Ballard on Wednesday when discussing the safety position.
The Colts didn’t sign Harrison until last summer, and although he had spent his career up to that point playing safety in the NFL, where he started 45 games, during training camp, the team made the decision to transition Harrison to linebacker.
Harrison would begin the 2023 season on the practice squad learning his new position, but was signed to the active roster and became the Colts’ Will linebacker with his coverage abilities when the team moved on from Shaq Leonard.
Then when the defense was without Julian Blackmon, Harrison would start at strong safety.
“I’ve just been blessed this whole year, getting picked up by the Colts in the offseason, being at home all year, getting a shot to come in on the practice squad to prove myself. I feel like I did that,” Harrison said in January. “To be able to elevate and play and help make a difference toward the playoffs is everything I could have dreamed of.”
Harrison finished last season appearing in seven games and playing 234 defensive snaps. He made 18 of his 22 tackle attempts, allowed only six receptions on 11 targets and held opponents to under 7.0 yards per catch. Harrison also had two interceptions.
At least given what we can glean from OTAs and minicamp, it sounds like the starting snaps next to Blackmon were between only Cross and Thomas.
Early on in his career, Harrison saw more snaps as a free safety, according to PFF, which is the role that the Colts need to fill. However, in recent years, he’s spent more time in the box.
How Harrison could fit into this positional battle at safety remains to be seen. The Colts would either have to be comfortable moving Harrison to free safety or have Harrison be the strong safety and move Julian Blackmon back to the free safety role, even though he is coming off a career year playing in the box.
Of course, the caveat when discussing training camp is that things can change, but as of now, there haven’t been any indications that the Colts are going to move either Harrison or Blackmon around.
“Sometimes the strong safety and the WILL linebacker in our system act very similar,” Gus Bradley said via the Indy Star. “So we had him (Harrison) in here at strong safety, and we thought, ‘Let’s put him in at linebacker on the practice squad. We like his skill set, his ball skills and his speed, so let’s see if we can get him closer to the ball.’”