The Colts finished the 2025 NFL Draft with eight new players: Tight end Tyler Warren (first round), defensive end J.T. Tuimoloau (second round), cornerback Justin Walley (third round), tackle Jalen Travis (fourth round), running back D.J. Giddens (fifth round), quarterback Riley Leonard (sixth round), defensive tackle Tim Smith (sixth round) and linebacker Hunter Wohler (seventh round). Here are 10 big things you need to know about the Colts’ 2025 draft class.
. The Colts stuck to their process early in the NFL Draft, and broke a trend by the end of Day 2.
Two tight ends hadn’t been selected in the first 14 picks of an NFL Draft since at least 1980, and it might’ve even been longer if you want to argue about the semantics of pre-internet position designations. Anyways, the point is: Even with two highly regarded tight ends in this year’s draft, the Colts always felt like they’d have a chance to draft a difference-maker at that position with the 14th overall pick.
So when the Chicago Bears selected Michigan’s Colston Loveland with the 10th overall pick on Thursday night, there was no panic in the Colts’ draft room. General manager Chris Ballard didn’t furiously start calling the San Francisco 49ers (pick No. 11), Dallas Cowboys (No. 12) or Miami Dolphins (No. 13) in an attempt to trade up and secure Penn State’s Tyler Warren.
Ballard believed – correctly – that none of those three teams would take a tight end, and that none of them would trade down to a team looking to move up for Warren. The Colts were patient, not panicked, and it paid off when the 49ers took Georgia defensive end Mykel Williams, the Cowboys took Alabama guard Tyler Booker and the Dolphins took Michigan defensive tackle Kenneth Grant.
“Had a good feeling,” Ballard said. “We work really hard at this to kind of figure – team needs, our pro scouts do an unbelievable job of, ‘Alright, here’s what they need.’ No, felt good about it.
“I’ll tell you this, the last time I felt that good about pulling a pick, and I felt good about all of them, but was Quenton (Nelson). Like, it was easy. It was easy. There wasn’t a lot of discussion.”
2025 Colts Draft Class: TE Tyler Warren (Penn State), DE JT Tuimoloau (Ohio State), CB Justin Walley (Minnesota), OT Jalen Travis (Iowa State), RB DJ Giddens (Kansas State), QB Riley Leonard (Notre Dame), DT Tim Smith (Alabama), LB Hunter Wohler (Wisconsin)
TE Tyler Warren (Penn State) ROUND 1 PICK 14
Penn State’s Tyler Warren (44) celebrates his second quarter touchdown during the Nittany Lions game with Minnesota. The Nittany Lions defeated the Golden Gophers, 45-17 during their Generations Of Greatness/Homecoming/White Out game on Oct. 23, 2022 in Beaver Stadium.
might’ve been a touch surprising for some draft watchers when Loveland, not Warren, was the first tight end selected on Thursday. But Ballard said the Colts liked both tight ends, and in the case of the Bears, Loveland – who played nearly 50 percent of his snaps in 2024 in the slot – was a better fit for a team with an entrenched veteran “Y” (in-line) tight end in Cole Kmet.
The Colts, on the other hand, needed a Y tight end – someone who can line up with his hand in the dirt and be physical as a run blocker while also controlling the middle of the field as a pass catcher (more on that in Thing 2). Both teams, in using high picks on tight ends, got the flavor of player they needed.
What Warren’s 17-catch game against USC meant for the Colts’ evaluation of him.
The Colts made what looked like a bold selection in the 1999 NFL Draft – they took Miami’s Edgerrin James, not Texas’ Ricky Williams, as the first running back off the board with the fourth overall pick. Williams was the reigning Heisman Trophy winner. But James did something exceptional in 1998: He rushed for 299 yards and three touchdowns against a previously-undefeated UCLA team to close out Miami’s regular season.
That game was a big reason why Todd Vasvari – a longtime Colts scout – pushed for James, not Williams, to be the Colts’ first-round pick in 1999.
Twenty-six years later, the Colts scouted another player who had an exceptional game against a Los Angeles-based college. Warren set a Penn State record with 17 receptions against USC in October, and his 224 receiving yards were second-most in program history.
. The Colts’ Day 2 picks both were impressed by Warren in college.
Both of the Colts’ picks on Friday – Ohio State defensive end J.T. Tuimoloau and Minnesota cornerback Justin Walley – faced Penn State and Warren during their college careers: Tuimoloau played against Warren four times, while Walley faced him twice.
And Warren left quite an impression on both of his new teammates, as both highlighted Warren’s athleticism, physicality and versatility.
“He’s a rugged athlete,” Tuimoloau said. “He doesn’t do too much talking, but he talks with his pads and with his pads and with his athletic ability. With him, you’re getting a silent assassin. That’s a Swiss army knife. That just shows you how many tools he has in the bag. You’re not just getting a tight end, you’re getting a lot of other weapons within one person.”
What the Colts are getting from J.T. Tuimoloau on and off the field.
As a 16-year-old, defensive end J.T. Tuimoloau was starting to generate buzz as one of the nation’s top recruits. He wound up being rated by 247 Sports as the No. 2 recruit – behind only quarterback Quinn Ewers – but the Seattle-area native didn’t rest on his tape or performances at recruiting showcases.
Tuimoloau was one a handful of high school players who were invited to train under the watch of Tracy Ford, who runs Ford Sports Performance in Bellevue, Wa. Among the pro players who trained with Ford were Seattle Seahawks stars Bobby Wagner and Cliff Avril – as well as Colts linebacker Zaire Franklin, who had no connection to the Seattle area other than he wanted to train with Wagner, the best linebacker in the NFL. This was before Franklin ascended to set franchise records and earn a Pro Bowl nod as the Colts’ starting Mike linebacker.
Like Franklin, Tuimoloau sought out the best players and went to go train with them. Wagner, by the way, didn’t believe Tuimoloau was a high school player when the two started training together.
“Guys that want to be great do it,” Colts area scout Mike Lacy said. “They find the guys in their network that they know, guys they have access to or maybe mutual contacts they can reach out to and pick their brain. It’s obviously very encouraging on his part that he did that and had enough awareness to do that.”
The lessons Tuimoloau took away from training with those top-level NFL players in high school stuck with him as he developed into one of college football’s most productive and disruptive defensive ends while at Ohio State.
“They made it a point to get your work in and not waste time,” Tuimoloau said. “That’s what I saw — I was like man, they sacrifice all this time and they don’t let no time go to waste. For me, it was never let time pass by and always find areas to grow.”
On the field, Tuiomolau had 12.5 sacks as a senior at Ohio State. Notably, 6.5 of those sacks – two more than any other player had in the expanded College Football Playoff – came during Ohio State’s championship run to end the 2024 season.
The thing about him that stands out to me,” Lacy said, “is he played his best ball down the stretch when they needed him the most in their biggest games.”
Tuimoloau had that production – he had 19 total pressures in those four games, too – while consistently drawing double teams and chip help from opposing offenses. Yet he managed to find a way to fight through however many blockers were trying to keep him out of the pocket to be a key reason why the Buckeyes won a national title.
“What you see from J.T,, he knows he’s getting extra attention — he’s used to it,” Lacy said. “You see a guy strain a little bit harder, fight a little bit harder. You have to get a little bit more creative, be a little bit more savvy to beat that extra attention that you’re getting.”
The Tuimoloau pick is a good reminder a team’s needs today are not their needs tomorrow.
The Colts’ defensive end depth chart in 2025 looks loaded after drafting Tuimoloau in the second round: There’s him, 2024 first-round pick Laiatu Latu, 2021 first-round pick Kwity Paye and veterans Samson Ebukam and Tyquan Lewis.
That’s a five-deep rotation of players with pedigree and/or production. The Colts envisioned a similar rotation a year ago when they drafted Latu, who joined Paye, Ebukam, Lewis and Dayo Odeyingbo atop their depth chart.
But Ebukam sustained a torn Achilles’ a few days into training camp and did not play during the 2024 season. Lewis and Paye missed games here and there with injuries. Depth in theory doesn’t always mean depth in reality.
Ebukam will return from his injury this year, but the Colts lost Odeyingbo in free agency to the Chicago Bears. And, notably, three players in the current rotation – Ebukam, Lewis and Paye – are scheduled to be unrestricted free agents after the 2025 season.
There’s a good chance Tuimoloau will help the Colts right now as a rookie. But if the Colts aren’t able to retain some of those free agents in 11 months, a strong, physical presence on the edge like Tuimoloau will be awfully nice to have then.
Justin Walley, Tim Smith and Hunter Wohler can all fit what Lou Anarumo wants in his defense.
New defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo built a roundly-respected reputation with the Cincinnati Bengals as a schematic mastermind when it comes to disguising and deploying a wide variety of coverages. Over the last four seasons, he called a healthy mix of Cover-1, Cover-2, Cover-3, Cover-4 and Cover-6, with plenty of wrinkles in each of those coverages.
So what Minnesota cornerback Justin Walley said on Friday night, after the Colts drafted him, sounded exactly like what Anarumo would want out of a defensive back.
“I’ve had the opportunity to play every single coverage you can play — man, Cover 2, invert 2, Cover 3, Cover 3 match, all types of simulated pressures,” Walley said. “I feel like I have experience in all those.”
Walley was a four-year starter at Minnesota and played both outside corner and in the slot; he also said he feels comfortable playing safety if asked. He started 42 games and showcased good ball skills while playing all those different coverages, totaling 34 pass break-ups and seven interceptions.
The Colts were not dissuaded by Walley’s size (he’s 5-foot-10 and 190 pounds, both under the 25th percentile for cornerbacks at the NFL Combine since 1999) and instead focused on his tape, competitiveness and speed (he ran a 4.40-second 40-yard dash at the combine while wearing a cast over his wrist).
“He plays the game how we want to play,” area scout Tyler Hughes said. “He’s smart, tough, instinctive, takes the ball away. He’s going to come up in the run game and fill. He goes after the ball when he’s trying to tackle. Overall a complete player, aside from the size, is what we’re looking for and then the character on top of it — once he gets in the building, he’s a special individual and I think you’re going to see how tough he really is.”
Alabama defensive tackle Tim Smith, the second of the Colts’ back-to-back sixth-round picks, is a pocket pusher with heavy hands and good strength on the interior. His ability to absorb guards and tackles to create lanes for back-seven players in run support or on blitzes made him an attractive target for the Colts later on Day 3.
D.J. Giddens offers three-down potential.
In another year – one without a glut of highly-graded running backs – Kansas State running back D.J Giddens might’ve heard his name called on Day 2 of the NFL Draft. Instead, he waited until the Colts called with the 151st overall pick, despite a productive college career highlighted by back-to-back seasons with over 1,200 rushing yards.
“I think he’s going to come in here with a chip on his shoulder,” Hughes said. “He probably thinks he’s a lot better back than some of the guys that may have been taken before him. … He’s all business, he’s got the right mindset and we got a good room and good group of coaches that will get the best out of him.”
Giddens was the 15th running back selected in the 2025 NFL Draft; only 20 running backs were even drafted a year ago, including just four in Rounds 2 and 3.
Why the Colts took a quarterback – specifically, why they took Riley Leonard.
The Colts picking a quarterback on Day 3 of the draft might’ve raised some eyebrows around the league, but they didn’t just pick any quarterback. They picked a guy in Notre Dame’s Riley Leonard who both scouts and coaches loved during the pre-draft process – and that he came with a stamp of approval from Philip Rivers didn’t hurt, either.
Leonard is a native of Fairhope, Ala., where Rivers in his retirement is the head football coach at St. Michael Catholic High School. Leonard and Rivers connected, and recently, Leonard went over to Rivers’ house to throw with Rivers and his son, Gunner, who’s a four-star quarterback recruit in the Class of 2027 (feel old yet, again?).
“The biggest thing I learned is how intentional he is about every little thing,” Leonard said. “If we’re doing the warm up and we’re taking five-step drops, those five-step drops have to be pristine in order for them to be good enough for him.”
A connection with Rivers – who quarterbacked the Colts to their last playoff appearance in 2020, and before that spent seven years with Steichen with the San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers – carries plenty of weight at the Indiana Farm Bureau Football Center. Steichen, throughout the process, championed Leonard and hoped to add him to a quarterback room that’ll see a competition between Anthony Richardson Sr. and Daniel Jones this year.
“That he had both those guys (Rivers and Steichen) in his corner made it very easy to stand on the table and fight for him here in this building,” Lacy said. “He had a lot of support here, not just myself, but a lot of guys liked Riley
Leonard’s hard-nosed competitiveness and leadership qualities shined during Notre Dame’s run to the College Football Playoff championship last season. Despite playing in a national championship game, Leonard less than two weeks later was at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., going through practices and meeting with teams. Nothing was too big for Leonard both during and after his lone season in South Bend, and the Colts expect the same to be the case as he looks to make his way in the NFL.
“Anytime you’re at a program that’s as notorious at Notre Dame, with all the attention, the spotlight that’s on you especially as QB1 in the seat he was sitting — and then you go on a big playoff run, you have all eyes on you almost every week there for quite a stretch, I think that definitely played into our evaluation,” Lacy said. “Just his moxie, his confidence, his leadership, his ability to handle all that, that impressed us.”
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