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Tennessee Titans cornerback Elijah Molden (24) tries to navigate around Indianapolis Colts offensive tackle Blake Freeland (73) but is unable to get the first down Sunday, Dec. 3, 2023, at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tenn. Robert Scheer/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK

Colts' Under-the-Radar Roster Battle Expected to Heat Up in Camp

Originally posted on Indianapolis Colts on SI
By Zach Hicks | Last updated Jul 24, 2025 12:14 PM ET

The Indianapolis Colts are host to a plethora of roster battles this summer. All eyes will be on the starting quarterback competition between Daniel Jones and Anthony Richardson, but there is also plenty of intrigue when it comes to the starting center and the second outside cornerback role. Another under-the-radar battle taking place is the one for swing tackle.

The swing tackle position has essentially been a starter for the Colts over the past two seasons. Actual starters Braden Smith and Bernhard Raimann have each dealt with their fair share of injuries over the years, so the key reserve behind them has started 17 of the 34 games over the last two seasons. The Colts' swing tackle job will be one of the more essential positions in determining wins and losses for the team this season.

The two players competing for the role this offseason are Blake Freeland and Jalen Travis. Travis, a fourth-round selection in this past draft class, is an experienced young player with over 40 career college starts. He will likely have his lumps as a rookie, but the Colts are sky-high on his potential as a player. At 6'8", 339 pounds, he boasts elite athleticism and explosion at the position.

Jalen Travis using his hands to break opposing defenders' long arm/bull rushers. Travis has some impressive flashes on film pic.twitter.com/iJ06CYQsYv
— Zach Hicks (@ZachHicks2) April 30, 2025

Freeland is the veteran in the room, and he actually held down the swing tackle job back in 2023 as a rookie. Like Travis, he was once a fourth-round selection with incredible athletic traits for the position. He was thrust into action early in his rookie season, and the results were less than satisfactory. Pro Football Focus credited him with four sacks allowed in nine starts and assigned him a putrid 42.6 pass blocking grade (ranking number 55 out of 56 qualifying offensive tackles in pass blocking).

Freeland returned the following offseason to a competition with third-round selection Matt Goncalves, and Goncalves won the job pretty handily in camp. Goncalves would go on to be the primary swing tackle for the entirety of the 2024 season, as Freeland appeared in just 23 total snaps in his sophomore season. With Goncalves moving inside to right guard, Freeland is getting one final chance to lock down the swing tackle job that he lost last offseason.

NFL life comes at ya fast, Blake Freeland.

cc: Aaron Donald lining up at wide 9 lol pic.twitter.com/vOmnE8fQ1u
— Ben Fennell (@BenFennell_NFL) October 2, 2023

The expectation is that Travis, like Goncalves last offseason, will win this job outright in camp, but General Manager Chris Ballard did note that it is an open competition between the two players. In his opening press conference prior to the start of camp, Ballard said, "I think Travis has got a really good ceiling to what he's going to become in our league, and Freeland has gotten stronger and bigger, which has been really encouraging."

The Colts kicked off practices yesterday without pads on, so it's hard to decipher the quality of offensive line play in the trenches. Freeland took a majority of the reps at left tackle with the second team while Travis settled in at right tackle on the same unit. This battle will likely be determined once the pads are on and the coaches can get a real grasp on how each player is acclimating to the new season.

One final aside that could factor into this battle is that there doesn't necessarily have to be a winner and a loser in this battle. They are competing for one spot traditionally in the Colts' system, but the swing tackle job doesn't have to be divvied out to just one player. In a very optimistic sense, if both players have a strong training camp, one players could be the reserve left tackle with the other being the reserve right tackle.

That scenario is unlikely given how the NFL typically works, but it gives a truly optimistic scenario to hope for in camp. The dream is that both of these players have the training camp of their lives, and the Colts are just rolling in offensive tackle depth this season, but we will all happily take just one of these two players taking hold of the position by the end of summer.