Insider: Colts' young pass rushers must take big step forward to help Buckner, Ngakoue

INDIANAPOLIS — The defensive overhaul the Colts went through this offseason should make the pass rush better.

Gus Bradley, the defensive coordinator Indianapolis hired to take over for Matt Eberflus, brought in defensive line coach Nate Ollie to teach the attack front made famous by former Bradley pupil Robert Saleh, stripping other responsibilities off the front four in order to focus solely on getting off the ball and into the backfield.

The Colts traded for Yannick Ngakoue, handing Pro Bowl defensive tackle DeForest Buckner the running mate he’s long needed on the edge.

Buckner and Ngakoue have combined to rack up 100.5 sacks since they both entered the NFL in 2016. By pairing the two together, Indianapolis has raised the floor on a pass rush that produced just 33 sacks in 2021, tied for 25th in the NFL, and failed to produce the constant pressure Bradley’s Raiders defense put on quarterbacks out in the desert.

But as good as Ngakoue and Buckner have been over the years, the Colts know they’re going to need a lot of young defensive linemen to take a big step forward if Indianapolis is going to have the kind of relentless pass rush Colts general manager Chris Ballard has long coveted.

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“It’s still a work in progress,” Bradley said. “Obviously, guys like Buckner and Yannick have had some proven skill set that they can affect the quarterback. Now, it’s just a challenge that we’d like to get it to where we’ve got two groups, eight guys and can just keep rolling them in.”

Kwity Paye, the team’s first-round pick in 2021, is going to be Ngakoue’s bookend on the front line. Paye finished his rookie season with four sacks and 10 quarterback hits, spent the offseason working on adding moves and counters to his pass rush repertoire and has lined up across from Ngakoue throughout training camp.

“Very physical, very tough-minded, you just really trust him out there,” Bradley said. “Because of his effort, a lot of his sacks come on second effort. I believe with Kwity, a guy the way he goes, he can be the guy, but I think also the second effort is going to give him some opportunities.”

Bradley and the rest of his defense staff broke down every sack in the NFL a couple of years ago, trying to determine how most sacks happen. A remarkably high percentage of them come on what Bradley calls the second effort — a defensive linemen disengaging from a block and crashing down on a quarterback trying to navigate the pocket.

“With how athletic quarterbacks are, you’ve got to believe that they have the ability to extend plays,” Bradley said. “That’s where the second effort part comes in.”

Finding the right interior rusher to team with Ngakoue, Buckner and Paye remains the final hurdle to identifying the Colts’ best pass rush. By virtue of the body he trimmed down and remade a couple of seasons ago, Grover Stewart has more pass rush ability than most nose tackles, but he’s still likely to come off the field in obvious passing situations.

Any interior lineman rushing next to Buckner is going to get 1-on-1 chances.

The Colts need to find a player who can take advantage.

“We’re looking at some guys right now,” Bradley said. “You’re going to see a lot of mixing and matching just to see what provides us the best, most consistent rush.”

At least two of the linemen vying for that role took big steps against the Lions on Saturday.

Versatile veteran Tyquan Lewis, playing in a game for the first time since tearing his patellar tendon against Tennessee last October, recorded a big tackle-for-loss on third down and produced a couple of quarterback pressures in 16 snaps.

“We just needed that extra day to get some game action, find my footing again,” Lewis said. “You can practice all day, but the game’s different.”

Lewis, who has 8.5 career sacks, is probably the most accomplished applicant for that role on the inside next to Buckner. A ‘tweener who weighs only 265 pounds, Lewis has looked explosive and quick since returning to the lineup on the second day of training camp, and the Colts have slowly increased his workload over the past couple of weeks.

Facing a rare knee injury that is traditionally a difficult recovery, Lewis has gotten back to his old self faster than anybody else expected.

“When I was a week out of surgery, they were like, look, this is how long it’s going to take,” Lewis said. “I was like, I just need a plan. Just give me a plan, pinpoint where I have to be at, and each week, I was just trying to accomplish it before the end of the week.”

Under Ballard, the Colts have always liked ‘tweeners, defensive linemen with the speed and explosiveness to play defensive end and the size to rush from the interior on passing downs.

Lewis is one of those players.

Indianapolis believes second-year player Dayo Odeyingbo, a second-round pick like Lewis, is another. Odeyingbo, like Lewis, had to sit out half his rookie season due to injury, a torn Achilles tendon suffered while training for the Senior Bowl in the predraft process. Unlike Lewis, Odeyingbo was never ready to play a starting role, averaging 17.3 snaps per game over 10 games as a rookie, his lone sack coming on a key strip of Trevor Lawrence to seal a win over Jacksonville.

Indianapolis has high hopes for Odeyingbo, and the Colts have given him a high workload in both practices and preseason games, playing him all over the defensive line in an effort to get a thorough evaluation. Odeyingbo has already played 73 defensive snaps this preseason, more than any other Indianapolis defender.

“I haven’t had a high snap count in a long time,” Odeyingbo said. “Shoot, the game jersey feels different than the practice jersey.”

Odeyingbo, like a lot of young players, has gone through ups and downs in training camp.

But he broke through against Detroit, piling up two sacks. On both plays, Odeyingbo took advantage of a 1-on-1 situation created by a blitz — a chop-and-rip led to his second sack, but the first looked a lot like the plays he’s made throughout training camp.

A sack on second effort, disengaging from the blocker as the quarterback steps up into the pocket, only to find Odeyingbo’s enormous wingspan waiting for him.

“I feel like that’s probably the most common way to get a sack,” Odeyingbo said. “What I was saying with the jerseys, that’s a big difference being in a game, is being able to grab cloth. The game jersey is way tighter. In practice, you can easily grab his shirt and shed, but in a game, you’ve got to be more precise about where you grab.”

Odeyingbo is process-oriented, building his approach on the principle that focusing on the details will produce the results he wants.

But it was nice to take the quarterback down twice on Saturday.

“I definitely helps seeing the fruits of your labor,” Odeyingbo said.

Lewis and Odeyingbo are not the only candidates vying for a spot on the Colts’ top pass rush.

Veteran R.J. McIntosh, who did not play on Saturday due to an injury Indianapolis called “minor," has been reborn in the Colts’ pressure-oriented scheme, frequently lining up as the team’s third defensive tackle behind Buckner and Stewart. Defensive end Ifeadi Odenigbo, another well-traveled veteran, is trying to recapture the form that led to a 7-sack season in Minnesota in 2019, and he’s been the team’s most productive pass rusher in the preseason, producing a sack and four quarterback hits.

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And no matter who takes the lion’s share of the snaps with Buckner, Ngakoue and Paye, the reality is the Colts are going to need the rest to form second wave of defensive linemen capable of putting pressure on the quarterback. Fourth-year defensive end Ben Banogu could factor into that mix as well; Banogu has spent most of training camp backing up Ngakoue at the LEO, the speed rushing position in Bradley’s defense.

If the Colts defensive line is deep enough to put pressure in a rotation through the first three quarters, then Indianapolis can keep its studs fresh for the game’s most important moments.

“That fourth quarter pass rush is so important,” Bradley said.

Indianapolis didn’t have enough of it to close out games last season.

The Colts know they have to have it to get where they want to go.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts: Young pass rushers must take big step forward