INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indianapolis Colts could be in a tough predicament if outside linebacker Noah Spence is on the board when their pick at No. 18 rolls around in the April draft.
General manager Ryan Grigson and coach Chuck Pagano have both publicly acknowledged that they need to improve a pass rush that finished in the bottom third of the NFL last season.
Spence would help fix that problem. But he’ll come with a warning label attached to him. Spence, despite his top-10 talent, comes with the type of baggage that has some teams worried. He failed multiple drug tests for taking Ecstasy while at Ohio State. He was eventually kicked off the team and banned from the Big Ten.
That should be a major warning flag for Grigson, who wants to avoid players with character issues.
“With anybody with a substance abuse problem that they’ve had, I feel like they’re pretty leery about it, but if you can put it behind you, you can convince the team it’s behind you,” Spence said. “Been drug tested frequently. And just like, put my focus more on football, school and stuff like that.”
The Colts recently released another linebacker with Ohio State ties. Linebacker Jonathan Newsome, who transferred from Ohio State to Ball State, was released following his arrest for marijuana possession. The move gave further proof that Grigson and the Colts aren’t playing around when it comes to off-the-field problems.
Spence had 63 tackles and 11.5 sacks last season at Eastern Kentucky.
“Noah is just pure speed. He can run for days,” Ohio State offensive lineman Taylor Decker, a former teammate of Spence said. “He could run with the linebackers and be beating them. He’s really quick off the ball and has a really good motor. I’m just happy to see he was able to turn things around because I know he was going through some dark times. I like him as a person and I’ve always gotten along with him. It’s cool to see a guy who had every reason to fail but didn’t use one of them as a reason to fail.”
The Colts were ranked 22nd in the NFL last season with only 35 sacks. Their best pass-rusher was 35-year-old Robert Mathis, who had seven sacks last season.
Wait, it gets worse.
Grigson and many others don’t believe this is a deep draft for pass-rushers. That’s a tough spot for the Colts to be in, especially since they watched a Denver team with a dominant pass rush win the Super Bowl earlier this month. Going the free-agent market route will be tough, too, because the Colts don’t have much financial flexibility (about $25 million salary cap space) to work with.
“The old adage, you know, if you have 12 pass-rushers, go get 13," Grigson said. "But it’s easier said than done. The draft this year, there are some players. It’s not, personally in my opinion, as thick as you’d like. But those guys are at a premium. They go really high in the draft. The developmental guys, a lot of times they have their warts. There are different types of players. There are guys that can get to the quarterback a multitude of ways, but those pure edge rushers are the ones that command the big dollars. They’re the ones that are in everybody’s first-round mocks and all those types of things. Those are the guys that come to the forefront real quick. I think everybody knows how important the pass rush is."
And that’s why it’ll make things difficult for Grigson, Pagano and owner Jim Irsay if Spence is still on the board when it's time for them to make their selection in the first round.