Stampede Blue
PFF announced their best PFF Colts team of the past twenty seasons, beginning in 2006, which of course, was the Horseshoe’s impressive and magical Super Bowl winning season, and culminating until the most recent 2025 campaign:
Now, it’s worth noting that the “PFF era” is looking at each individual player’s complete body of work during that period of time for the Colts and not just their best individual season with the franchise of PFF grading.
Otherwise, it’s a fair question of whether we would’ve seen both Marvin Harrison and Tarik Glenn from 2006, while running back Edgerrin James narrowly missed the cut as he departed the franchise during the 2025 free agency period. More recently, Eric Ebron obviously had a huge receiving season for the Colts at tight end with 13 touchdown receptions back in 2018, if it had solely been based on best individual seasons in Indianapolis.
On offense, there aren’t any real surprises for me given the criteria. I may have expected longtime bookend Ryan Diem of the ‘Peyton Manning era’ to potentially challenge Braden Smith for the starting right tackle job, and potentially Ryan Kelly with Jeff Saturday, given that was the back-half of the latter’s pro career with the Colts. Still, I think Saturday’s playing career peak in the PFF era was probably better than Kelly’s in comparison.
Mark Glowinski (2017-21, and *2024) was a solid starter at right guard for Indianapolis, particularly in run blocking where he clearly excelled. That being said, it speaks to the franchise’s lack of true star power and collective dearth of talent at the position that he makes this All-PFF squad entirely.
Regarding the other side of the football, the Colts’ defensive line seems rather self-explanatory. The Colts had their best defensive end duo in franchise history during the ‘Peyton Manning era’ with the historically elite quarterback terrorizing tandem of Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis–both of whom were ‘Ring of Honor’ teammates. Meanwhile, All-Pro DeForest Buckner and his running mate, run-stuffing space eater Grover Stewart, are as consistently as good as it’s gotten at defensive tackle in Indianapolis on a more longer-term basis.
There’s more surprises here defensively than on offense. Former Colts linebacker Jerrell Freeman is a sneaky addition here,...
