Chris Ballard Ready To Retool Defense In 2026
- Colts defense needs more youth and speed to improve performance.
- Ballard plans to target defensive ends and linebackers in free agency and draft.
- Challenges include aging core players like Buckner and Stewart.
INDIANAPOLIS – The defensive personnel that Chris Ballard has so richly invested in?
It’s time for the man himself to clean up some of that mess.
Perhaps the clearest 2026 off-season focus for Ballard is to get “younger, faster” on a defense that is certainly on the older side.
“I do think we need to help the defense out more,” Ballard said at his season-ending press conference last week. “I think our age showed a little bit.
“Our defensive front, we’ve got to add some fuel to the front, and we’ve got to get younger. We’ve got to get faster, unequivocally, on defense.”
This was a pretty consistent theme from Ballard as the GM closed the book on a 5th straight season without the postseason, with a look ahead to Year 10 building the Colts.
In constructing his version of the Colts, Ballard’s hands have especially been all over the defense.
He wanted to change from the Chuck Pagano 3-man front defensive approach to a 4-man look.
Immense draft capital, particularly premium picks, have been put to the defense. The Colts had a top-10 highest paid defense last season.
Yet as the years have moved along, and Ballard has maintained his job, the GM has realized he needed to change some of his decisions there.
One such move came last year with the Colts firing defensive coordinator Gus Bradley after 3 years, opting to hire Lou Anarumo. The thought was the defense needed to get more creative and multiple on a week-in-week-out basis.
Another area to correct is here this offseason, as the defense that Ballard has put gobs of resources in has reached a time for more attention.
“I think throughout the defense, we have to get faster,” Ballard said again, this time when finishing out an answer about the linebacker position.
The need to change things defensively certainly makes sense.
In points allowed, the Colts have ranked in the following places since the start of their playoff drought: 11th (2021), 29th (2022), 28th (2023), 24th (2024), 21st (2025).
So, what exactly will these changes look like in 2026?
The Colts have free agent defensive ends in Kwity Paye, Tyquan Lewis and Samson Ebukam, so natural moves there could occur. At linebacker, Germaine Pratt is also a free agent.
If the Colts have a goal of getting younger, too, are we talking about that possibly impacting stalwarts Grover Stewart (32, signed through 2026) or DeForest Buckner (31, signed through 2026)?
No matter, it sounds like a hefty amount of the Colts draft capital come April, sans their first-round pick off to the Jets, is going to the defensive side of the ball.
Is Lou Anarumo ready to then play those younger guys right away?
All of this centers around the Colts needing to finish games better, slamming the door shut when asked to defend two-minute situations. Those were particularly costly in late-season losses to the Chiefs, Seahawks and Texans.
In giving Ballard another year, the Colts are saying it’s time to continue to try and fix those, self-created, problems.
And the defense appears to be a big focus for that in 2026.
“We got to find a way to continue to address – whether it’s through the (NFL) Draft, free agency, however we end up doing it, in house – we’ve got to address the front and make sure we have enough,” Ballard said.
