Doyel: Colts' WR room isn't good enough. Nick Cross injuring Josh Downs didn't help.
WESTFIELD – At the intersection of football and violence, safety Nick Cross is chasing receiver Josh Downs across the field in a seven-on-seven drill at Colts camp. Competition is about to collide with common sense, and afterward Colts coach Shane Steichen is saying “we’ve got to be smart” while Cross is wondering: How, exactly?
“You’re playing football,” Cross was saying afterward. “You’re competing.”
If you were expecting repentance or guilt from Nick Cross – if you were looking for even a smidgen of introspection – you were looking in the wrong place after practice Wednesday, when the Colts either (A) avoided disaster with a camp mishap that didn’t do serious damage to Downs’ ankle or (B) saw their 2024 season go down in flames.
News: Colts WR Josh Downs suffers ankle injury after ill-advised tackle by Nick Cross
Video: Colts' Nick Cross on Josh Downs injury: 'We're competing'
IndyStar Colts Insider Joel A. Erickson confirmed Downs has suffered a high ankle sprain. Downs could be fine when he returns in a month, but high ankle sprains are tricky, unique. It could slow him down, nag at him the rest of the season. We’ll see.
Either way, the Colts are not good enough at receiver, not even with Josh Downs, but without him? Without the second-year receiver from North Carolina, who caught 68 passes in 2023 and has been quarterback Anthony Richardson’s No. 2 target in camp behind Michael Pittman Jr.? This receivers room is simply not very good.
Apologies. You want to hear third-year receiver Alec Pierce is capable of doing more than running 40 yards as fast as he can. You want to hear second-round pick Adonai Mitchell was the steal of the 2024 NFL Draft. Practices are open at training camp, which means we can see what’s happening, and we can see that neither is true.
On Wednesday, we saw these two things happen:
We saw one of the Colts’ worst starters on defense hurt one of their best players on offense.
And we saw the limitations of Pierce and Mitchell.
Shane Steichen after Josh Downs injury: Nick Cross must 'be smart(er)'
Nick Cross doesn’t think he did anything wrong.
Depending on your perspective, Cross either dragged Downs to the ground after Downs caught a pass – or landed on him after Downs slid to the ground on his own. It happened fast, in that murky zone where speed is racing caution, during the period of practice when reporters can’t use their cameras or phones. Video of the play hasn’t appeared (yet?) on the social media account of one of the several thousands Colts fans in attendance Wednesday at Grand Park.
What is beyond dispute: The contact happened during a seven-on-seven drill, where tackling isn’t part of the process, which is why Steichen very clearly said Cross made a mistake.
Reporter: “What did you see on that play with what Nick (Cross) did?”
Steichen: “We’ve got to be smart. We’re competing like crazy but we’ve got to stay off the ground, and we can’t go down. Bottom line.”
Sounds definitive: Cross screwed up.
Asked a similar question by another reporter – Nick, what happened on the play (with) Josh? – Cross didn’t back up his coach.
“I mean, we’re playing football, we’re competing. Josh (is) my guy, I love that boy to death, we’re competing. It’s unfortunate.”
Another reporter: “Do you feel like you need to pull up a little bit, in seven-on-seven settings. Or are you OK with how you played that?”
Cross: “We’re competing, playing football at the end of the day.”
A little later I told Cross, “I know that play happened fast, but what I’m hearing is if that happens again, you’ll do the same thing? You’re OK with how it went down?”
Cross: “We’re competing. Never want to get your teammates hurt and everything like that. Like I said, Josh is my guy, so.”
On the one hand, you understand what Steichen said: Stay off the ground. Don’t go down. Bottom line.
On the other hand, you understand Nick Cross. He’s competing for a starting role – perhaps for his NFL career – during a camp where the Colts are believed to have this specific weakness:
Him.
For two years the Colts have given Cross every chance to win the job against former seventh-round pick Rodney Thomas II, and he hasn’t. For months #ColtsTwitter has been clamoring for the team to sign free-agent safety Quandre Diggs (now with the Titans) or Justin Simmons (still available), and the noise gets louder by the day.
So here comes Josh Downs on Wednesday, beating the Colts secondary again. And here comes Nick Cross, a split-second too late. Downs slides to the ground. Cross helps him get there.
Only one of them gets up.
They’re competing. They’re playing football.
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Adonai Mitchell, Alec Pierce not good enough yet
Meanwhile, the Colts’ first exhibition game is approaching against the Denver Broncos. Steichen didn’t say whether his starters would play – it would be only for a series to two – but his demeanor and knowing smile suggested, yeah, Anthony Richardson and Co. will be on the field Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium. That’s my interpretation anyway.
What could go wrong? Nothing. Or everything. Call two simple running plays for Jonathan Taylor, then let Richardson roll out on third down, throwing the ball to an open receiver – or throwing it out of bounds, at the first sign of danger – and everybody goes home safely.
Unless they don’t. I mean, Josh Downs just got hurt by a teammate during a non-tackling drill. Things happen in football. Chaos theory isn’t just an advanced form of mathematics, but what happens when gigantic football players are running at borderline world-class speed until they collide.
Colts center Ryan Kelly was saying Wednesday that he’d like to play a little against the Broncos, but he acknowledges the Colts will have joint practices in the coming weeks with the Arizona Cardinals and Cincinnati Bengals, and he understands players can get hurt. He repeatedly deferred to Steichen’s decision, whatever it may be, while musing about the good ol’ days:
“My rookie year, (expletive), we played three quarters in the third (preseason) game,” he said. “Nobody’s doing that anymore.”
These days they’re not even supposed to hit in certain portions of fully padded practice, but that didn’t stop Cross from hitting – landing on? – Downs. The injury to Downs came on a day when Adonai Mitchell continued to struggle to hang onto the ball, and when Alec Pierce continued to show he’s not much more than a deep threat.
On a misty day Mitchell dropped two passes – easy catches, right in his gloved hands – while Pierce showed, again, that he’s rarely open in real time.
Pierce can go up and get the ball in contested situations, there’s no doubt about that, but how often does a quarterback in today’s NFL simply throw one up for grabs? During one-on-one drills, just the quarterback and a receiver going against a cornerback, Pierce ran a deep pattern again starting cornerback Jaylon Jones. Because his assignment was to throw it up for grabs, Richardson did just that – and the 6-3, 211-pound Pierce used his body to wall off the 6-2, 203-pound Jones and make the leaping catch. Think: Offensive rebound.
Think also: One such target per game, max.
In team drills later – seven-on-seven, then 11-on-11 – Pierce was thrown the ball only on broken plays, with Richardson or Joe Flacco leaving the pocket and buying time and finding Pierce coming back for the ball. There is value in that, to be sure, but if your No. 3 receiver can only run deep or make himself useful on a scramble drill, your receiver room isn’t good enough.
That’s the Colts, even with a healthy Josh Downs: Their receiving room isn’t good enough. The Colts without Josh Downs? Maybe Michael Pittman Jr. can catch 150 passes. Maybe Jonathan Taylor can run for 2,000 yards. Maybe Anthony Richardson can win games all by himself.
Maybe, Nick Cross, you can stop injuring teammates during mostly non-contact drills. Yeah, you’re competing, you’re playing football. But at the end of the day, that was more than the end of Josh Downs’ day.
What if it’s the end of the Colts’ season?
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts Nick Cross hurts teammate Josh Downs and already weak WR room
