Insider: Yannick Ngakoue plans to study offenses with Robert Mathis this season

WESTFIELD -- Before Yannick Ngakoue crouches in his wide-nine stance before bursting around the edge, he's looking for every edge he can find with his new Colts team.

That includes picking the brain of one of their all-time greatest pass rushers.

Ngakoue said he plans to meet up with four-time Pro Bowler Robert Mathis throughout this season to game plan for specific offensive tackles he will face with the Colts.

"That's someone who did it at a high level for a very, very long time, and he did it here," Ngakoue said. "You've gotta look at the greats and always pick their brains because they paved the way for us, and he might see something I didn't see."

Mathis just joined the Colts' Ring of Honor last season. He's now six years removed from his 13th and final season with the Colts, a run in which he racked up 123 career sacks and won a Super Bowl ring. He was known for teaming up with Dwight Freeney on the opposite side of the line to close out leads for Peyton Manning. It was the dream of a speed rusher.

And Mathis was built on speed. He was listed at 6-foot-2 and 245 pounds, on the slender side for a 4-3 defensive end. But in Tony Dungy's defense and in a score-heavy iteration of the Colts, that closing speed became lethal.

That's where Ngakoue will hope he and Mathis can connect. He said he's known Mathis through a network of defensive ends for years.

Ngakoue is listed at 6-2 and 246 pounds, though he said he finishes practices as low as 232 pounds now. He's a Pro Bowler hoping to become one of the missing pieces to a possible AFC contender, to bring the pass rush to a franchise that lacked it a year ago.

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Mathis has been rather vocal on Twitter about his desire for an improved Colts pass rush, and now he'll have the chance to have a hand in it.

It's the latest step for Ngakoue to try to immerse himself in Indianapolis and with the Colts. He's running a school supplies drive on Twitter, interacts with fans online and at training camp and plays one of the most relentless brands on the Colts' 90-man roster. He's had at least six sacks in all six of his pro seasons, but it has yet to convince a team to give him a long-term extension. The Colts are already his fifth squad.

He'd like that cycle to end, and he knows how big this season is in a contract year at age 27.

What he's shown so far is that he's willing go all-out to get there.

"It's good to see a guy that hates losing," defensive end Kwity Paye said of Ngakoue. "That's a guy that you want on your team. If you have a guy who is just okay if you lose and he's just like, 'Ah, whatever,' that's not the guy you want to go into war with. When it really gets tough, you can't depend on guys like that.

"So having Yann on our side is great."

Contact Colts insider Nate Atkins at natkins@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @NateAtkins_.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts: Yannick Ngakoue to study offenses with Robert Mathis this year