The Indianapolis Colts are down to their 2026 roster, and a few of the choices made along the way are already raising eyebrows. There’s talent here, sure, but depth remains a problem, and trimming to 53 only sharpened that concern. Some of the players who were cut could circle back to the practice squad and be available for game days up to three times, but a few of these calls still stand out as hard to explain.
One of the most puzzling decisions was keeping offensive lineman Dalton Tucker. That move looks even more unusual after the Colts traded for center Sedrick Van Pran-Granger before roster cuts.
The clearest read is that the team sees Tucker as a swing guard rather than a pure center, because his work at center has been rough. In preseason Week 3, he struggled badly in the first half snapping the ball, and that’s not a skill set a team can trust in real games.
At guard, though, the track record hasn’t offered much comfort either. Tucker allowed eight total pressures, including two sacks, in just 86 pass-block reps in 2025, and he gave up 24 total pressures in 279 pass-block reps in 2024.
Both seasons, he played mostly right guard. Why he survived the cut is a question only Chris Ballard can answer.
Even stranger was the decision to move on from Colby Wooden. By all accounts, Wooden had put together a solid camp and preseason, and he was the return the Colts got when Zaire Franklin was traded to the Green Bay Packers earlier this offseason.
That deal now looks like a straight salary dump, with Franklin gone and Wooden gone too. Instead of Wooden, Indianapolis kept Tim Smith and Jerry Tillery.
Tillery has been around since 2019, is now on his fifth team, and has not been good. On paper, Wooden looked like the safer choice by a wide margin.
Whether the Colts are proven right will come down to the season, but at the moment the move doesn’t make much sense.
The last head-scratcher is the choice to keep Laquon Treadwell over Anthony Gould. Treadwell brings value on special teams, but as a receiver he has not offered much, and at 31, he is clearly on the back end of his career.
He was a first-round pick by the Minnesota Vikings in 2016 and never lived up to it. Gould, meanwhile, is 25 and has not done much as a receiver either, but he does provide something Treadwell does not: kick and punt return ability, and he has been pretty good at it.
Cutting him means the Colts now have to find another player, or players, who can handle that third-phase job. If anything, Gould seemed like the more logical keep, and maybe Indianapolis is hoping he lands back on the practice squad.
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The list includes rookie safety A.J. Haulcy, who was among the players not practicing, while Pierce, Tyler Warren and Josh Downs were on the field. With the opener drawing closer, the Colts are still sorting through a few health questions on both sides of the ball, and how those situations resolve will shape what the team looks like when the Ravens come to town. [Read more 🡒]