Colts GM Chris Ballard hints at the futures of Ryan Kelly, Braden Smith, and Samson Ebukam

Attempting to read the tea leaves that fell from Chris Ballard’s press conference at the NFL Scouting Combine.

Indianapolis, IN — The NFL Scouting Combine’s media portion kicked off this morning as general managers and head coaches from across the league took the podium for availability.

While these press conferences in question offer potential insight as to how a team will operate in upcoming acquisitional periods such as free agency and the NFL Draft itself, now is the first opportunity since the season concluded for media members to check in on the futures of rostered players and/or pending free agents.

As for the Indianapolis Colts, its pending free agent class pales in comparison to the previous off-season which saw a slew of homegrown players be retained. However, the three biggest question marks surrounded OL Ryan Kelly and Braden Smith, as well as DE Samson Ebukam.

C Ryan Kelly

Kelly has been a longtime Colt, spending his entire NFL career thus far in Indianapolis. A multi-time Team Captain and Pro-Bowler, Kelly’s time in Indy appears to have come to an end. Colts general manager Chris Ballard had this to say about their discussion(s) thus far with Kelly:

“We’re gonna meet again next week. I’m visiting with his agent again this week. Right after the season, we visited for a little bit; we didn’t visit about his future.”

With how inconsistent Kelly has been over the last few years, and with the team’s future center in Tanor Bortolini ready to take the reins, it certainly makes sense from the Colts’ standpoint to move on. Ballard didn’t make any proclamations that they’d be doing so, but it felt as if the future has already been written.

One of the biggest talking points during this off-season has been regarding the potential cuts of tackle Braden Smith and defensive end Samson Ebukam. The Colts could theoretically add ~$25M in cap space with only $6M in dead cap if they were to make these moves.

While that seemed to be on the table before today’s media availability, the vibe after Chris Ballard’s press conference seemed as if one of the two players is likely to be back whereas the other in question is unlikely to return.

RT Braden Smith

The longtime Colt has struggled to stay on the field during the latter half of his tenure thus far, as he has only put together a full season in one of the past four years. Smith had a personal matter come up this past season which ultimately held him out of the team’s last five games. This is what general manager Chris Ballard had to say when asked about his situation:

“We’re supporting Braden [Smith]. We think the world of him, he’s been a great player for us. We’ll see going forward. What I will tell you is that he’s doing really well, and he wants to play football. We’ll work through the rest of it.”

Although he provided his unwavering support of Smith, it wasn’t the ringing endorsement that you’d hope for a player still under contract for the upcoming season. There’s no denying that Braden Smith is one of the best right tackles in the league whenever he’s on the field, however, the issue sprouts from the aforementioned fact that he’s struggled to stay on said field over the past handful of seasons.

DE Samson Ebukam

The Colts’ sack leader in 2023 with 9.5 sacks, Ebukam tore his left Achilles just three days into last season’s training camp. Although following an Achilles injury in an athlete’s first season back typically brings a down year with it, Ebukam’s talent was sorely missed as Indy’s pass rush took a step back in 2024 without him.

Colts general manager Chris Ballard didn’t provide too much on the subject, though he did bring up Ebukam’s rehab with a certain optimism that read as if he’ll be back in 2025 to finish his contract. “It’d be good to get Samson [Ebukam] back. He’s been doing great work in terms of rehab and coming back,” said Ballard.