Colts 5-round mock draft after re-signing Julian Blackmon

The Colts re-signing Julian Blackmon does potentially impact how they approach the upcoming NFL Draft.

Prior to this signing, safety was a massive need for them. Rodney Thomas was the only player on the roster with over 1,000 career defensive snaps. The next most experienced player was Nick Cross with fewer than 500 career defensive snaps.

Those two have also spent the majority of their playing time in the free safety role. So unless the plan was to move Cross to strong safety, those two would be competing for that starting deep safety spot, while the box safety role was very much up in the air.

When it comes to the draft, the roster construction at safety would have almost forced the Colts to spend an early-round pick on the position. A problem with that approach, however, is that this is not a very strong safety draft class. Safety would actually receive the second-lowest overall positional grade in this year’s draft from PFF.

There isn’t a safety worth taking in the first round for the Colts, meaning that spending one of their Day 2 picks on the position was a potential must. This isn’t to say an impact player can’t be found on Day 3, but that isn’t something teams should be banking on either.

When a GM feels the need to address a certain position at a specific point in the draft, that’s not a good spot to be, especially when there are few immediate impact options. Given how Ballard has drafted the last two years, top safeties Kamren Kinchens and Tyler Nubin also might not even be high on the Colts’ board right now because of their athletic testing.

Even with the addition of Blackmon, safety still remains a need. Improved depth is needed, not to mention that Blackmon is playing on a one-year deal, so if the Colts aren’t proactive, they’ll be right back in a similar spot with this position next offseason.

That said, as I wrote about recently, this signing does give Ballard some flexibility when it comes to addressing safety in the draft. Rather than feeling the need to draft a safety somewhat early on, he can let the board come to him because Blackmon provides some much-needed stability to the position group.

So, with all of that in mind, let’s see how a five-round mock draft turns out using the Pro Football Network simulator and knowing that Blackmon will be on the Colts’ roster.