The Colts’ edge rush picture is crowded, but the real pressure sits on one player: Jaylahn Tuimoloau.
Indianapolis got a major lift from Laiatu Latu last season, and that’s exactly the kind of jump the team needs again. The hope is that Tuimoloau, a second-round pick in 2025 and the former Ohio State Buckeye, can follow the same path Latu took from a modest rookie year to a much bigger second season.
That’s easier said than done. Tuimoloau enters a spot where expectations are already heavy, and some of that comes from the way general manager Chris Ballard built the room. Ballard has missed on edge rushers before, and the Tuimoloau pick may have pushed the bar even higher, much like the situation that developed around Kwity Paye.
Paye never became a high-end pass rusher, topping out at eight sacks in a season and finishing with four last year before leaving in free agency for the Las Vegas Raiders. Ballard replaced him with veterans Arden Key and Micheal Clemons, but neither move did much to raise the ceiling of the group.
Key may not match what Paye brought, while Clemons has been fairly terrible over the course of his career. Even the two edge rushers Ballard added in the 2026 NFL Draft were late-round picks.
That leaves Tuimoloau in a spot where he can either help push the whole defense forward or leave Latu carrying most of the load. The Colts do have depth at the position, with at least six players in the mix, but if Tuimoloau doesn’t deliver, Latu may be the only reliable difference-maker in the group. If Tuimoloau hits the level expected of a second-round pick, the defense looks a lot stronger.
His rookie year didn’t give Indianapolis much to work with. Tuimoloau played just 24 percent of defensive snaps in 2025 and finished with one tackle for loss, no sacks, and 17 tackles. For a player taken that high, it was a quiet debut.
Still, the Colts have a recent example of what a Year 2 leap can look like. Latu posted four sacks and five tackles for loss as a rookie in 2024, then exploded in his second season with 8.5 sacks, 61 total pressures, and 12 tackles for loss. If Tuimoloau can get anywhere close to that kind of rise, Indianapolis will be in a much better position to chase its first postseason trip since 2020.
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