After one game, the green dot is moving. After a multitude of communication breakdowns in the 41-23 loss to the Baltimore Ravens Sunday at Lucas Oil, safety Cam Bynum has been relieved of the green-dot responsibilities after just one dreadful week, the Colts giving them to linebacker Akeem Davis-Gaither, who has handled that role previously during his time in Cincinnati.
We saw this coming Tuesday, when defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo failed to commit to Bynum beyond this past Sunday.
Nobody else in the league uses a free safety as a green-dot guy, but the Colts, who are smarter than everybody else, thought they could make it work.
It didn’t.
It was a small disaster.
“We weren’t even lined up on the first play of the game,” Anarumo said. “That’s 50 yards right there that has nothing to do with a matchup. That’s just not being aligned properly and ready to go…We’re trying to get our best guys on their best guys, clearly. A couple of their tempo play caught us off guards. No excuses for that.”
Why is this happening?
Two words: CJ Allen.
Not to be too critical, but it’s like this: Allen, a linebacker from Georgia and a second-round selection, isn’t ready to play, not a single down, for the Indianapolis Colts. Not at linebacker, not on special teams, nowhere. Did I mention he’s a second-round pick?
When Allen was drafted, general manager Chris Ballard insisted Allen would be a plug-and-play middle linebacker who would fill Zaire Franklin’s shoes and be the green-dot communications guy. But, as my mom used to say, “Man plans, God laughs.” This one hasn’t quite worked out – yet -- Allen being active for the opener against Baltimore but getting zero snaps. And this was on a day when the guy playing in front of him, Jaylon Carlies, produced a statistical goose egg.
It brings to mind last year’s second-round draft pick, Ohio State’s Jaylahn Tuimoloau, who was inactive for the first 10 games, then was a role player the last seven. He still isn’t having an impact – shoot, on Sunday, nobody had an impact based on the team’s lack of tackles for loss and pass breakups – and there’s no guarantee he ever will. As we’ve learned over the year, Ballard seems to have a positional blind spot at the edge rusher spot. He’s whiffed like Adam Dunn in his prime (look him up, kids).
Or maybe it’s a second-round deal, at least recently. Prior to Allen and Tuimoloau, Ballard drafted JuJu Brents in 2023 and A.D. Mitchell in 2024. Neither is still with the team.
Now comes Allen, but it’s way too early – I mean, waaaay too early – to cast any kind of judgment, much less harsh judgment, on the young player. Understand, he missed several days early in camp with a pair of injuries and is still trying to get up to speed, both at linebacker and on special teams. But right now, he is virtually unplayable, as evidenced by the zero snaps he was given in the opener. You would think he might get some run late in such a one-sided game, but he was the only Colt never to see the field Sunday besides Anthony Richardson Sr.
Anyway, here’s the fallout: Without Allen at middle linebacker and wearing the green dot, as the Colts believed he would when they selected him, the green-dot responsibility would not have fallen to safety Cam Bynum. Well, we saw the result: Ravens receivers were running free all afternoon, largely the result of blown coverages, poor identification and communication errors – especially when Baltimore quick-snapped the football.
On Tuesday, the day the media talks to the three coordinators, Anarumo was completely non-committal when asked if Bynum would continue to wear the green dot next week in Kansas City and beyond. Turned out, there was a very good reason why he was non-committal. One day later, on Wednesday, Shane Steichen announced the change to Davis-Gaither.
“When you have as bad a game as we had, I think you evaluate everything,” Anarumo said. “It’s certainly not just on Cam, but we’ve got to evaluate everything we do…So if (changing the green-dot designation) is something we need, you know that’s one of the things that we’re evaluating here.”
So what do we make of Allen and his early inability to earn snaps? If it’s just a matter of a lack of reps, that’s acceptable; everybody develops at a different pace. If he’s not good enough, another wasted second rounder, that’s an issue. Time will tell.
“I’m not displeased with any part of what CJ’s done so far,” Anarumo said. “You know, he was set back nearly a month with this injury. AJ (Haulcy) was really set back a week, so it’s a totally different comparison in time off between the two. A.J.’s injury, luckily for him, occurred when we had the little mini-bye over the Labor Day break, where CJ came in, hurt it right away and was down for a while.
“So it set him (Allen) back some…CJ is getting better every day, so I am not down on him at all. He’s a rookie. It takes some time, especially at his position. But he’s really progressing the way we want him to and every day he gets better physically. So I think the comparison between the two really isn’t fair just because the time difference really isn’t the same…Both of them are going to impact our season in a positive way.
“Hopefully, sooner rather than later.”
Special teams coordinator Brian Mason was asked why Allen hasn’t even earned a few snaps on special teams, and his answer made perfect sense. At least it did to me.
“CJ had more than one injury in camp and as he was working back from those injuries, he was limited in practice,” Mason said. “When guys are limited, it usually means they’re focusing on getting offensive and defensive reps and not special teams reps. So the number of special teams reps that he had banked up is not a lot.”
Again, we’re not crushing a rookie who has not yet played a regular-season snap. But it shows you how fragile the ecosystem of an NFL team can be, especially when they trade away their leading tackler, Zaire Franklin, to Green Bay for, well, nothing. (Colby Wooden failed to make the team.) A couple of injuries, Allen misses time and the whole house of cards collapses.
The problem with using a free safety as a green dot is the distance he must cover from the back end of the defensive formation to the defensive huddle. Back and forth, back and forth. Bynum said in camp he’d need to improve his conditioning to make that trip time and again in a game. Safeties have been used as green dots in the past, but the vast majority are linebackers who play 100 percent of the snaps. The Colts don’t currently have one of those, having been forced to use a linebacker-by-committee approach.
With new Baltimore OC Declan Doyle going to tempo on several plays, the Colts consistently found themselves a full step behind.
Thus, the change.
“I know I could make it work, but I did sense (after the game) that there’s a reason that linebackers do it for the most part,” Bynum said Wednesday after the change was made. “That was one of the big things I noticed after the game that year, it wasn’t easy for sure. I know if I had to, I could make it work but with Akeem being a good veteran, I think he’s really cut out for it.”
Don’t come down too hard on Allen, who may someday become a very fine player, but for now, this is largely his fault.
Akeem Davis-Gaither…you’re up, young man.
Allen is hurt, that's not his fault. It's Ballard who is constantly drafting players who are injury prone or already hurt when he drafts them. Why on earth is Ballard still here?
Excellent assessment of a team unable to find its path, Bob. I admit to be a diehard Colts/Hoosiers guy. Still trying to process why our Colts couldn't find a reason to draft even one IU player from an undefeated National Championship team even though multiples were drafted by other teams in both high and even lower rounds. At least would have given fans more reason to watch their games. Even saw today that undrafted IU OL Kalill Benson played a strong role for the Chiefs last weekend. Past time to cut ties with current head coach and GM!