WESTFIELD - There's a new version of Kwity Paye this year. The Colts pass rusher is eight pounds lighter, slimmed down in the midsection, which he shows only briefly to an opposing tackle before he dips low beneath their arms, around their hips and into the pressures that eluded him a season ago.

The shredded frame, the renewed mind, the streamlined pass rush approach -- it's all by design. This isn't just an important fourth NFL season for him.

This is the year that could define his career.

Paye was in a tenuous place when this offseason began. He was coming back for what was set to be a contract year, but the Colts were replacing his defensive line coach, moving from Nate Ollie to Charlie Partridge. Those above him kept talking about how the lack of a game-sealing edge rusher came back to bite them in late-season losses to the Bengals, Falcons and Texans, when the Colts fell one win short of an AFC South title.

The Colts tried to take a swing on four-time Pro Bowl edge rusher Danielle Hunter in free agency, but the Texans outbid them. So Indianapolis spent the 15th overall pick on UCLA's Laiatu Latu, bringing in a player with 23.5 sacks and 34 tackles-for-loss over his final two college seasons in order to beef up the edge play.

The Colts already had Samson Ebukam coming back from a team-high 9.5 sacks. They also had Dayo Odeyingbo and had just re-signed Tyquan Lewis. But now, they had a decision to make on Paye and whether to guarantee him $13.38 million for 2025 -- or to keep him in suspense.

They picked the option up.

"My motivation went through the roof," Paye said. "On the show 'Receiver,' DaVante Adams talked about when they gave him his second contract, his big contract, his confidence went through the roof because, 'I'm that guy now.' The team sees him as that guy, so he has to be that guy."

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Paye attacked this offseason in a way he never had before.

Training at Proactive Sports Performance in Westlake Village, Calif., he'd start his mornings with a cardio session and then a heavy lift before he'd move into pass-rush drills with renowned specialist Ed McGilvra. He'd finish with a rotation of hot yoga, pilates and physical therapy in order to bounce back into it when the sun rose the next day.

Paye dropped 15 pounds initially but gained half of it back through strength training. He arrived at camp at 262 pounds, what he hopes is a sweet spot between the base he needs to maintain his renowned edge sets in the run game and the juice to beat a tackle with speed from Indianapolis' wide-nine edge alignment.

"When he showed up to report day, I told Kwity that he doesn't look like an old-school middle linebacker anymore," defensive tackle DeForest Buckner said. "He leaned up a bunch and you can tell the difference with the hard work he put in in the offseason. He's putting that all on tape, especially in the pass rush."

It's a different approach than Paye took a year ago, when he tried to simply build on the "big end" profile he had established as a first-round pick out of Michigan in 2021. In some ways, the mix worked out, as he finished with a career-high 8.5 sacks in a career-best 16 games.

But the consistency wasn't where he wanted. Paye has long been a tinkerer of pass rush moves, but three years in, he found himself caught with too many options and not enough fuel. He finished with pressures on just 8.3% of snaps, ranking outside of the top 70 pass rushers, according to Sports Info Solutions.

That pressure rate was a career low for him, and he felt the sting as C.J. Stroud hung in a pocket and diced up the Colts secondary to lead the Texans to the AFC South title in Lucas Oil Stadium.

"You could definitely feel it late into the game. On long drives, you could feel it," Paye said. "I just want to make sure I'm on the field as much as I can, making sure I can bend the corner and make sure I'm slim.

"I feel good now. I didn't need to have all that weight. I'm just as strong as before."

What started as an offseason of unknowns for Paye has flipped to a year as critical as ever. Ebukam tore his Achilles early in training camp, putting the pressure for playmaking on Paye and Latu to compensate for a Colts secondary that keeps mixing and matching safety combinations without a clear answer.

Now, a man of many pass rush moves is searching for the best blend of himself.

"He's always competing with Kwity," said Partridge, the new defensive line coach. "... If you're training your lower body right, it's OK to carry a lot of moves. The biggest thing that me and Kwity have been working on with Ed (McGilva) is the timing of it, really threatening that offensive lineman as fast as we can and then to hit the move. Sometimes if you're overthinking and trying to time it up, it takes longer than it should."

Paye looks the part now, in a way he hasn't always in the past. Now, it's about being the part for 17 games, in the year that might just define his career.

"They picked up my fifth year for a reason. I'm not just out here to be another guy. I have to elevate my game," Paye said.

"I just want to go out there and be dominant every single play."

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

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts Kwity Paye transformed his body in order to win with speed