Stampede Blue
The Colts are about to finish the offseason with some post-draft free agency moves, marking the 10th offseason under Chris Ballard. The decade of Ballard’s management has been a wild rollercoaster ride, albeit not all of it due to Ballard himself. But after this Ballard decade, how does the Colts roster stack up from 2026 compared to 2016, the last year of the Grigson era?
In this position by position series, we breakdown each spot of the Colts roster to see if the Colts are better or worse than their counterparts from a decade ago. If you want to find our previous entries of this series, you can find them below:
We are finally getting to the Defense, starting off with Edge Rushers!
The 2016 Colts Edge room was filled with veterans. The trio of Robert Mathis, Erik Walden, and Trent Cole sharing a combined 31 years of NFL experience heading into 2016 at ages 35, 31, and 34 respectively.
Meanwhile the Colts top 3 edge rushers of 2026 have just 11 years of experience between them, 8 of which with Arden Key alone, heading into the year. Which will win out: the growth of youth or the last embers of great veterans?
The 2016 Defensive Ends have experience and impressive resume’s with Trent Cole being a former 2nd Team All Pro and 88.5 career sacks and Robert Mathis being the Colts All Time Sack Leader at 118 and a former First Team All Pro (was the Defensive Player of the Year runner up in 2013), but it was clear that their best years were behind them by 2016.
Mathis had his worst pressure rate of his career by a wide margin. His previous career low (from 2007 and 2015) was 10.6%. Two years removed from a torn Achilles (and its subsequent bacterial infection) along with nagging foot issues that both required 10 surgeries in the span of 8 months and at age 35, it was clear Mathis’ storied career was coming to a close.
The NFL’s All Time Forced Fumble leader still made a big impact when he did get home with his strip sacking prowess, with his 54th and last one of his career coming in his final NFL game against Jaguars QB Blake Bortles. His final season might not have been the greatest one, but he still found a way to continue to embody his career even at the end.
