Colts DT-DeForest Buckner walks on the practice field.
Source: WESTFIELD, IN – AUGUST 18: Indianapolis Colts defensive tackle DeForest Buckner (99) runs through a drill during the Indianapolis Colts training camp practice on August 18, 2021 at Grand Park Sports Complex in Westfield, IN. (Photo by Zach Bolinger/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
INDIANAPOLIS – We are two more months away from full pads being donned. And another month-plus away from a real football game, but the Colts are already feeling the new presence.
That would be the arrival of Lou Anarumo as the Colts are installing a new defense for the first time since 2022.
“When I was doing my research up on him and stuff like that,” DeForest Buckner shares, “I saw that a lot of the players back in Cincy used to call him the ‘Mad Scientist’ and I found out why when I got the first install.”
As the Colts are embarking on their first 11-on-11 practice later this week, veteran defensive end Samson Ebukam points more to the tone of the new defensive voice as what has stood out early on.
“He’s serious. He’s very serious,” Ebukam says about Anarumo.
“He knows what he wants. He demands it and we just have to go out there and perform. If we perform, it’s going to be good.”
The Colts are embarking on a new era of defensive football.
Change was absolutely needed after below average play for 3 seasons under Gus Bradley.
While grass isn’t always greener, it’s hard to say the grass could get browner than it was under Bradley, with a defense routinely ranking near the bottom of the NFL in scoring.
The thought in hiring Anarumo is the Colts will be more diverse, more aggressive, more week-to-week game-plan based, stressing more of the unpredictable nature when it comes to preparation.
“I think variation on either side of the ball can make it harder to scout the opponent and prepare for the opponent,” offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter says. “So when guys can give you multiple fronts every week, multiple coverages every week, or sometimes in this business, we do our best to try to guess or project what the opponent is going to do, and you sort of set your game plan off that guess or that projection, and then you show up on game day, and it’s different. It can be complex for an opponent scouting that. It can make your game plan less effective, and it can make coaches sort of communicate and adjust more in game.
“So different looks, variation can be really, really good.”
This spring installation spring period though provides a bit of a defensive challenge in the Colts implementing a new defense without either of their starting linebackers.
But that doesn’t diminish the change the Colts are embarking on.
In 2024, the defensive captain in Buckner wasn’t shy in explaining that things needed to be different for the Colts moving forward.
And while Buckner wasn’t speaking specifically about Bradley, but he appears to be pleased with the new defensive mindset.
“We had some great conversations,” Buckner says about Anarumo, “just about like the mindset and how we’re going to move forward and things like that as a defense and wanting to be one of the top defenses in the league and what it’s going to take from obviously character, accountability, work ethic wise and all the things. And obviously the trust factor, from coaches to players, players to coaches, and players to players.
“I feel like we’re all on the same page and it’s been some great energy.”
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