Indianapolis Colts GM Chris Ballard held his pre-draft press conference with the media on Friday, April 19th.
He shared a lot of insight on the Colts' offseason to date, and explained the rational behind some of their moves.
While these press conferences typically contain vague answers that don't offer anything of true substance for fans, Ballard did share the team's number of first-round grades in the 2024 NFL Draft Class.
With Ballard sharing that 19-21 players ended up with first-round grades, I decided to guess who the players in the 2024 NFL Draft class are that the Colts have graded as a first-round talent. It's important to note that there will be some players at positions the Colts don't necessarily need, but they still graded out as first-round talents in this year's class. They've likely done all the work necessary to scout nearly every position.
The only one I didn't include in my thought process is QB because I have a hunch that Ballards 19-21 1st-round grades don't include the QBs in this class due to them having their guy at the position in Anthony Richardson. So here is the 21 players in this draft class that I believe are the players who earned 1st round grades from the Colts.
6 WRs:
1. Marvin Harrison Jr., Ohio State
2. Rome Odunze, Washington
3. Malik Nabers, LSU
4. Brian Thomas Jr., LSU
5. Xavier Worthy, Texas
6. Adonai Mitchell, Texas
1 TE:
7. Brock Bowers, Georiga
5 OL:
8. Joe Alt, Notre Dame
9. Talese Fuaga, Oregon State
10. Troy Fautanu, Washington
11. Graham Barton, Duke
12. Jackson Powers-Johnson, Oregon
3 Edge:
13. Dallas Turner, Alabama
14. Laiatu Latu, UCLA
15. Jared Verse, Florida State
2 DTs:
16. Byron Murphy II, Texas
17. Jer'Zhan "Johnny" Newton, Illinois
4 CBs:
18. Terrion Arnold, Alabama
19. Quinyon Mitchell, Toledo
20. Cooper DeJean, Iowa
21. Kool-Aid McKinstry, Alabama
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