On Thursday afternoon, Tom Pelissero reported that the Atlanta Falcons and free-agent safety Justin Simmons had agreed to a one-year deal worth $8 million.
The Colts, who have question marks at free safety, didn’t make a contract offer to Simmons, according to Nate Atkins of the Indy Star.
Simmons is coming off a Pro Bowl season with the Denver Broncos in 2023 and, throughout his career, has had excellent ball production, which includes coming away with 30 interceptions and 30 pass breakups over eight NFL seasons.
With the Colts having over $26 million in available cap space–the ninth-most in football right now–the financials were never really a hurdle when it came to getting a deal done.
But instead, GM Chris Ballard remains committed to the free safety options already on the roster, as he has been all offseason.
What we know at the safety position for the Colts is that Julian Blackmon will be on the field. After putting together a career year as a strong safety in 2023, Blackmon has picked up in training camp where he left off.
The unknown, however, is around who Blackmon’s running mate is going to be, and perhaps even where Blackmon is going to be lining up.
In an effort to find some sort of consistency at the position, throughout training camp the Colts have had Nick Cross, Rodney Thomas, and Ronnie Harrison–a strong safety/linebacker for the Colts in 2023–taking some starting snaps at free safety.
The team has even experimented with moving Blackmon to deep safety while having Harrison or Cross assume the strong safety role.
At the moment, and as has been the case throughout training camp, Cross seems to be the front-runner for the starting spot next to Blackmon. And to his credit, he’s coming off a solid performance at free safety in the preseason opener against Denver.
Now, the next step for Cross will be replicating that level of play so it becomes the norm rather than the outlier. Last season, consistency eluded the free safety position, and now just a few weeks from the regular season, the Colts are still in search of it.
