WESTFIELD -- We're through five practices of training camp, which is just one off the halfway mark.

It doesn't feel quite that advanced yet because the Colts have only worn pads for two practices and have been fast-paced and competitive for three.

It feels like a good time to revive the mailbag.

We've seen enough from the main characters of this Colts team and to get a feel for at least what the upside and questions on the roster are. The evaluations on offensive linemen and running backs are going to have to wait for more padded practices, but I promise I'll get to some next week.

(To contribute to these mailbags, which will post late-week during camp, either follow me on X @NateAtkins_, where I put out the call; or email longer questions to natkins@indystar.com.)

Let's get to it:

Question: "How deep into camp do you think (Chris) Ballard goes before addressing the secondary?" -- @darnhatburner via X

Question: "Is the secondary as bad as people thought it would be in the offseason?" -- @HunterCaleb98 via X

Question: "How are we looking at FS while (Justin) Simmons & (Quandre) Diggs are still sitting at home with $26M in cap room?" -- @rkapur1016 via X

Answer: So, you guys have secondary questions. As you should. I have secondary questions. The Colts have secondary questions.

The hope of this training camp is it provides some answers, but as they like to say in this league, hope is not a plan.

As Chris Ballard-led teams do, the Colts are taking the patient approach to a position group that's setting off alarm bells with everyone else. What that really means is open trials at free safety. Though it's fair to question the secondary as a whole, free safety is the only spot where the Colts themselves have expressed doubt about who they want to start.

The Colts have raved about JuJu Brents and Jaylon Jones as developing outside cornerbacks since midseason last year. Dallis Flowers still has to prove he can bounce back from an Achilles tear and into such an athletic profile. So far, he's taken all the reps with the second-team and has shown some rust in his technique and positioning, to be expected. So, I expect Brents and Jones to roll to start the year, though Brents' health and Jones' consistency will be tested.

They re-signed Kenny Moore II and Julian Blackmon with an obvious purpose. They are the playmakers and the glue of this group. They've been fantastic in camp, just overwhelming younger players, looking like they know what's coming.

But the Colts aren't close to settled at free safety. They started out by labeling it a battle between Nick Cross and Rodney Thomas II, whom they've been benched at different points the past two years. A couple days into camp, Ronnie Harrison Sr. entered in the mix as a regular first-team substitute playing ahead of Thomas, and he's been in that role every day since.

MORE: 'I definitely was a little surprised:' Why Ronnie Harrison is playing FS for Colts

I asked defensive coordinator Gus Bradley on Wednesday what he thought of what that competition has shown him.

"When you see them playing with good execution, you can judge their speed then," Bradley said. "They're not thinking as much. We still have some work to do as far as our evaluation, but it's going in the right direction."

Notice what he didn't mention was any players who are standing out.

Nothing in the Colts' words or actions resemble a ringing endorsement of their options. They keep preaching where they want to get to with the position -- a trust level that allows Brents and Jones to play their short-area, physical style underneath and not get burned too badly -- but that hope runs counter to their process of switching up reps as often as they are. Even the flashes are hard to come by right now, as it feels like Blackmon makes every downfield play from the group.

At this point, one of two things needs to happen:

1. Cross needs to take this position by storm, showing consistency and flashing the physicality and ball skills that made him a third-round pick.

2. The Colts need to sign one of Justin Simmons or Quandre Diggs.

Simmons and Diggs are out there because veterans who can afford to skip training camp sometimes will, and they know that one injury to a contender can create a desperation that stokes the safety market in ways it wasn't this spring.

The Colts are already in a place of likely needing them, but one injury could send this group into disarray. Blackmon and Moore combined for 31 games played last season, but they're also smaller players who have missed 30 career games between them. Their backups right now are Micah Abraham and Harrison.

It's fine to show a little patience right now, while Diggs and Simmons are both available and the season is five weeks away. But Cross needs a longer leash in practice, because a player with his athletic skills taking this spot by storm is the one avenue with enough upside to justify not signing one of the two Pro Bowlers looking for work in a depressed market. Harrison and Thomas both look like they could be great backups, but they shouldn't block a difference-making move for a team with this kind of offensive promise.

The Colts have more than $25 million in cap space, according to OverTheCap.com. They are financially flexible for three years due to Anthony Richardson's rookie deal and currently have one spot on their defense that's getting stressful. They need a solution here in the next week or so.

Question: "When does Ballard ever get held accountable for being average GM?" -- @Pkswim via X

Answer: I think this is an interesting time to look at Ballard's resume. What has been for general managers is not always an indication of what's to come, as our editor Nat Newell laid out in this analysis piece on Ballard's tenure. And I think we are reaching a clear fork in the road in Ballard's evaluation.

When Ballard arrived here in 2017, his job was to take a roster with a high-upside quarterback and support him with a football team to go with it. That process started out quite well with a playoff appearance and playoff win by 2018, when Andrew Luck looked as supported as ever, only for Luck's retirement in the 2019 preseason to throw a wrench in all of that.

Ballard has gotten a pass for some of that weirdness, such as a lost 2019 season and the stop-gap nature of filling that position without a plethora of options for a few years. That pass didn't excuse the disaster of the 2022 season, and it simply ramped up pressure on the quarterback he had to draft the next spring. But another injury just four games into Anthony Richardson's developmental rookie season added another asterisk.

MORE: This is the least satisfying analysis of Colts GM Chris Ballard you will read

But the time to see results is right now. The injury risk is a part of the profile the Colts bought into with Richardson, and Ballard's challenge is to build the right coaching staff, offensive line and offensive structure to live within it. A step in that was signing another bell-cow backfield member like Jonathan Taylor, and though Ballard made that step more stressful than it needed to be, he does have that environment healthy and ready to go now.

We're going to see what the line is between patience and apprehension, of whether the Colts are building something special organically or whether they're getting left behind in the AFC arms race. The Texans and Jaguars have adopted the opposite models to investing in outside talent around quarterbacks on a rookie deal. Perhaps they're on point, or perhaps they're acting restless. But we're going to know soon.

And how we'll know, specifically, has a lot to do with that secondary. Because that is Ballard's big gamble this year, like he took last year with the offensive line and saw it pay off and like he took two years ago with his tight ends and saw it blow up in his face.

Only this time around, he has two Pro Bowlers to sign as alternatives in August, once he sees how his experiment is working out in training camp. That could be a luxury to him. But it also creates an easy measuring stick for what he did and didn't do. If he chooses to bet on Cross or Harrison or Thomas and leaves two Pro Bowlers on the street with $25 million to spare, he has to be right.

I haven't sensed that Ballard has ever been on the hot seat since I arrived on the beat in 2021. I don't foresee that happening unless something goes really sideways either. But whether Ballard is willing to evolve philosophies or whether those philosophies can fit the modern challenge of team building is what we'll know pretty definitively by January.

Question: "In which position is Jaylin Simpson training? Does it seem he will have snaps in his rookie year?" -- @LorenScalise via X

Answer: So far in camp, Jaylin Simpson has been training exclusively as an outside cornerback. That's the position he played for his first three years at Auburn before moving to safety last season. It's also an easier spot to receive reps at in these settings, since there are two spots as opposed to one free safety position.

But defensive backs coach Ron Milus did say that the coaches already believe free safety is in Simpson's toolbox since he played it last season, when he was a second-team All-Southeastern Conference player. So, a good measure of his cornerback reps right now are a measure of cross-training.

Eventually, Simpson will specialize with just one of these positions because that's how it goes in the NFL, especially in the defensive back room. He was drafted at 179 pounds despite standing 6 foot tall, so expect this season to be more developmental for him. The job at free safety is too critical to take a gamble here, as we've laid out. And though he has the height for the Colts' style of outside cornerback play, he needs to spend this year adding the weight.

Question: "Is anyone separating themselves at the TE position? Or who seems to be on the outside looking in based on reps?" -- @TJohnson93_ via X

Answer: So, we couldn't make *every* question in this about the secondary, so here's a bonus about another position that's a little hard to figure out right now.

The simple answer is no, nobody is separating yet. Part of that is the pads just came on, and Mo Alie-Cox and Drew Ogletree are competing mostly in the blocker vein. Part of it is the Colts are intentionally bringing Jelani Woods on a little slowly since he's basically never practiced in this playbook.

I did think Woods had his best day on Wednesday, catching each pass that came his way, snagging some first-team rotational reps and creating a nice gain up the seam against Nick Cross in 11-on-11. He dropped a touchdown the other day, so he still has some ups and downs.

When it comes to upside, Woods is a bit like Cross in that it either comes from him or it likely doesn't come this season. The other tight ends all offer specialty traits -- Alie-Cox and Ogletree as blockers, Kylen Granson and Will Mallory as split-off pass catchers -- and Woods is left as the one, in theory, who could be a menace in both areas.

But we need to see a lot more, namely a connection with Richardson and regular first-team reps. There's real upside he can offer as a screen man and run-pass-option seam stretcher in Shane Steichen's offense, but the demands of his position are far easier to talk about than actually do.

Contact Nate Atkins at natkins@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @NateAtkins_.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts mailbag address what’s going on in the secondary, Chris Ballard