Enemy Intel: How'd the Colts do in the draft?

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By Tom E. Curran
CSNNE.com

The Colts' draft approach is the inverse of the Patriots. They wait for their turn to come. They take a player. They wait for their turn to come. They take a player. And while their overall team-building approach has been good enough to make them a quasi-dynasty - or at least the greatest team in the history of the AFC South - the draft hasn't been a strong suit, as evidenced by the four drafts preceding this year's.The best players they've taken in that span were Jacob Tamme, Austin Collie, Pierre Garcon and Clint Session. Tamme, Collie and Garcon's resumes to date have been aided by the fact Peyton Manning throws them the football. This year? Seemed very good. In the first round, the Colts took Boston College left tackle Anthony Castonzo. The Colts' offensive line has been borderline embarrassing the past two seasons. Indy allowed it to get old and brittle. They couldn't run block at all. Their protection of Manning - especially against higher-tier teams - was atrocious last season. Castonzo becomes the first offensive linemen the Colts have drafted since team president Bill Polian took over in Indy. Ironically, Polian's son Chris "ran" this draft. Indy came back in the secondround, making a deal to get up and draft Villanova offensive lineman Ben Ijalana. Castonzo will go to left guard; Ijalana becomes either a right tackle or a guard. TheColts came back in the thirdround and got Drake Nevis, a defensive tackle from LSU. Nevis is just 6-1 but he's swollen up to 308. My buddy Wes Bunting at the National Football Post loves him in a scheme like the Colts with asks for penetration from the D-line. Nevis gets off the ball fast and "violently," according to Bunting, and for a team that's also allowed 4.2, 4.3 and 4.6 yards per carry against it the past three seasons, they need D-line assistance .In the fourth round, they again went for a direct statistical need and took a running back, 5-9, 225-pound Delone Carter from Syracuse. He's a between-the-tackles guy and maybe can be the correct complement for the Colts running game that helps Donald Brown be less of a disappointment than he has been. The Colts took a corner in the sixth round, a kid named Mike Rucker from Michigan State. SUMMARYThe Colts were in decline. Manning's ability effectively masked that fact until last year. Butthe talent drain caused by age and years of unimaginativedrafting was approaching critical mass. They moved to fix that this year. Two rookie offensive linemen and an undersized but explosive defensive lineman aren't going to alter everything. But at least Indy moved to protect its asset, Manning.

Tom E. Curran can be reached at tcurran@comcastsportsnet.com. Follow Tom on Twitter at http:twitter.comtomecurran

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