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One of the guys who's flashed the most during the early part of training camp has been second-year wide receiver Josh Downs. He's been targeted at all three levels of the field – short, intermediate and deep – and on Sunday he caught a downfield throw near the sideline, juked a defender and accelerated for another 10 or so yards before the whistle blew.
That was just one of several highlights we've seen from the North Carolina product. Downs' Year 1 to Year 2 growth has been evident in his connection with quarterback Anthony Richardson – he said both he and Richardson are comfortable and confident making pre-snap route adjustments based on the coverage they're facing. Downs' more global knowledge of Shane Steichen's offense is benefitting him, too – he doesn't just know the details of his route, but how it fits with the other three or four pass-catchers in the pattern, affording him a better ability to get open within the rhythm of a play.
"Josh is a really smart player," offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter said. "Those really smart players take advantage of opportunities to make the most of their strengths. ... Josh is going to make the most of that from a route running perspective from a defensive coverage identification perspective. Josh is primed and ready to have a big camp out here and do some really good things."
The Colts always saw Downs as an eminently smart, coachable player – his dad, Gary, was an NFL running back from 1994-2000 and his uncle, Dre Bly, was a two-time Pro Bowl cornerback. But now that he's got all his Year 1 firsts out of the way, Downs has begun building on that experience in a manner that's turned heads at Grand Park.
It also certainly doesn't hurt that Downs already possessed tough-to-cover athleticism and a good feel for finding space within a defense, which led him to break Bill Brooks' long-standing Colts rookie receptions record in 2023.
"He was explosive Year 1, but you can see he's taking it to another level in the offseason and obviously starting into training camp," Steichen said. "He's making a ton of plays right now, which is good for us. So, we've got to continue that for sure."
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Speaking of second-year players who've shown signs of growth early in camp: Tackle Blake Freeland. With Braden Smith working his way back from offseason knee surgery, Freeland – who general manager Chris Ballard said had a productive first full offseason in the NFL – has stepped in at right tackle.
So far, Steichen has liked what he's seen.
"He's doing a great job," Steichen said. "Obviously, the communication piece is huge. That's one of our goals for training camp, make sure our communication – we're on that part of it. The communication's part has been great with him and the rest of the guys, but he's been really firm in there and creating a nice pocket on the edge for the quarterback."
The Colts drafted Freeland in the fourth round of the 2023 NFL Draft envisioning the athletic BYU product developing as a swing tackle able to play on both sides of the offensive line. He was thrown into the fire as a rookie, facing the likes of Aaron Donald, Myles Garrett and T.J. Watt over nine starts – tall orders for any offensive lineman, let alone a rookie who the Colts knew was going to need to add strength.
Freeland worked to add that strength this offseason, and it's shown up at Grand Park. He'll be tested when the pads come on beginning Tuesday, but the early returns on him have been encouraging.
"It's a big part of it – a guy that's gaining weight and getting stronger and bigger and getting quicker and faster," Steichen said. "I mean, you see those guys that come in the league, and they develop year after year after year and their bodies change. I've seen that jump a little bit from him already."
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Adonai Mitchell turned in one of the most spectacular plays of the nascent stages of training camp on Sunday with his twisting, diving, falling catch on a deep ball in the Colts' first one-on-one practice period of the preseason. His helmet flew off when he hit the ground and rolled a few feet from where Owner and CEO Jim Irsay was giving a press conference, which was quickly drowned out by Mitchell emphatically encouraging the crowd to hit a higher number on the decibel meter.
Mitchell's had a handful of notable plays so far, and for anyone who makes it to training camp in the next few weeks – watch how the 2024 second-round pick sets up his releases off the line of scrimmage. For example: He set up a clean outside release later in Sunday's practice to quickly create separation and snag a sideline throw from Joe Flacco.
Here's what wide receivers coach Reggie Wayne had to say about Mitchell after Sunday's practice:
"He's still got some ways to go, but as you seen today, give him the opportunity and he can make plays. That's one thing that's not new to him, if you watch his college film, he continued to make plays. But just getting him familiar with the offense more and more each day. ... I definitely got to start from scratch with him. But I tell you what, man, the guy's smart, he loves to compete, he's an alpha and I need all the dogs I can get."
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Another rookie who's flashed some upside during training camp: Fifth-round linebacker Jaylon Carlies. It's not just the interception he had on a tipped pass during Saturday's practice – he's had more disruptive moments while working as the backup WILL linebacker behind starter EJ Speed.
Defensive coordinator Gus Bradley said the plan is for Carlies to play WILL, but his skillset could lend itself to playing SAM – the outside/third linebacker spot when the Colts are in their base 4-3 defense (which isn't too much; mostly, the Colts are in nickel with two linebackers and five defensive backs).
Carlies played safety in college at Mizzou, but the Colts drafted him as a linebacker, seeing his length, athleticism, physicality and instincts lending themselves to the position switch.
"Knowing our linebacker coach, Richard Smith, he is a really good fundamental teacher and toughness, hand placement, strike and shed, all those things," Bradley said. "He and (assistant linebackers coach) Cato (June) do a great job coaching that up.
"So in our scheme, what we can't coach up is speed or change of direction, things like that. You've seen us evolve to where a little bit like we're willing to go, let's take a safety and maybe he hasn't had a lot opportunity to use his hands and strike and shed, but we feel like we can coach that part up. I think that's JC. He's a safety that's playing linebacker, but he's got really good length. He has that mindset. He just has to develop that skillset."
June, a safety at Michigan who turned into a Super Bowl-winning linebacker with the Colts, referred to Carlies as a "freak athlete" whose athletic profile makes could make him a "cheat code" as he develops as a linebacker.
"The more that he understands the game in terms of the defense, in terms of the NFL game, the better he's gonna get," June said. "He has a great ceiling and it's just a matter of time before it really starts clicking."
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The last thing here: I'm not sure any of us non-players, coaches or football operations staffers are quite ready for just how jarring a change the NFL's dynamic kickoffs will be in 2024.
Even watching the Colts practice them without pads on Thursday was strange. We're so used to high, arcing kickoffs that land around the goal line and are returned at full speed by a singular deep receiver. Or, maybe more accurately, we're used to effectively ceremonial kicks getting blasted out of the end zone for touchbacks – which was the impetus for the NFL to radically change how kickoffs look in 2024.
Instead, these new dynamic kickoffs are legitimate plays designed to maximize excitement and impact while minimizing injuries. So as the Colts were working through their first training camp practice period on kickoffs, they cycled through at least 12 deep players to receive kickoffs – definitely different from past camps where three or four players might get kick return reps.
"We're just trying to get as many guys back there to see who can handle some of these different situations because it's still very speculative exactly how this is going to play out," special teams coordinator Brian Mason said. "There's certainly a chance or an incentive that there's going to be trick kicks. The ball could be rolling around on the ground, you're not necessarily looking for a traditional kickoff return that can catch an easy, ball with an over-four second hang time. So, who are some of those guys that are really trustworthy ball-handlers that can field ground balls and get the ball vertical, make somebody miss, and that's not something maybe we've evaluated in the past. So, we've kind of got a bigger pool of guys are trying to work through to get experience with that."
The Colts, like the rest of the NFL, will get a better idea of how dynamic kickoffs will look during padded practices before moving on to joint practices and/or preseason games.
"I think joint practices are going to be probably the No. 1, probably best tool to see how everything goes," Mason said. "Preseason games are going to be great as well, but once we can get through joint practices and preseason games, we'll have a much better feel for at least to some degree, how things are going to play out."
