That’s not a big surprise, given some strong suggestions made earlier this offseason by general manager Chris Ballard. He again made it known Monday that the Colts are looking to make some moves on draft day.
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“I think the more opportunities you have on the board, the better,” Ballard said. “And what you can’t do is get so obsessed with one player that you lose sight of the bigger picture of what you could achieve. I anticipate we’ll be pretty aggressive next week, moving around the board.”
So, in an effort to be aggressive, which direction will the Colts trade? Up or down?
While the term aggressive may be synonymous with moving up, that doesn’t seem to be the direction Ballard wants to take.
“Don’t take being aggressive to mean promotion,” Ballard added. “To me, being aggressive can also be going back and then moving and acquiring more picks and then moving, like I think we’re going to be active. That’s probably a better word.”
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Trading down makes a lot of sense for the Colts. For starters, Indianapolis has a modest seven total picks, including just two in the top 100.
On top of that, despite being active in free agency, several position groups still need to be addressed with more immediate help, including defensive end, linebacker and wide receiver.
Ballard also mentioned that the “real strength” of this year’s draft is in the depth of the third, fourth and fifth rounds, so it would make sense that he would want to accumulate more picks in that range.
Using Rich Hill’s trade value chart as our guide, we recently took a look at what the Colts could get by trading back from the 47th pick.
This article originally appeared on Colts Wire: 2026 NFL Draft: Why the Colts want to be ‘active’ and move up the board