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Entering the offseason for the Indianapolis Colts, perhaps the biggest question mark on their depth chart was the safety position. Mike Adams was due to become a free agent, LaRon Landry was gone, and Sergio Brown was due to become a free agent as well. The Colts desperately needed help at the position, and they addressed it by re-signing Adams, signing free agent safety Dwight Lowery, and drafting safety Clayton Geathers in the fourth round.
The two starters are likely to be the veterans Adams and Lowery, and from there a number of players will be competing for a depth spot. One of the wild cards of the group is Winston Guy, and he might be a player to keep an eye on. Originally drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in the sixth round of the 2012 NFL Draft, he appeared in two games during his rookie season for Seattle. He was waived during the final cuts in training camp the following year, but he was quickly claimed off of waivers by the Jacksonville Jaguars. He spent the entire 2013 season with the Jaguars and the first four games of 2014 in Jacksonville, playing in 18 games total (starting five) and recording 43 tackles, two sacks, two passes defensed, and a forced fumble. As already mentioned, he was released four games into the 2014 season by the Jaguars, and soon after that the Colts signed him to their practice squad, where he remained for the rest of the season. On January 19, 2015, the Colts signed him to a reserve/futures contract.
One of the most interesting things about Guy is this report from FOX Sports' Mike Garafolo earlier this year about the safety factoring into the Colts' long-term plans:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Re: Colts' cutting Landry, watch Winston Guy. Turned down offers to leave IND practice squad b/c Colts sold him he was in long-term plans.</p>— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) <a href="https://twitter.com/MikeGarafolo/status/565576763179532288">February 11, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Keep in mind that, when teams sign a player away from another team's practice squad, they must sign him to their active roster - so Guy reportedly turned down chances at being on an active roster elsewhere to stay on the Colts' practice squad (and general manager Ryan Grigson called him the MVP of the practice squad, too). That must have been some pretty good convincing by the Colts, and that means that Winston Guy is absolutely a player to keep an eye on moving forward.
"I'm excited to see guys that really the public doesn't know about… guys that stayed on our practice squad for the entire year," Grigson said earlier this year, according to Colts.com's Steve Andress. "There's a reason for that."
For Winston Guy, he's likely to compete for a backup spot in training camp with other players such as Clayton Geathers, Colt Anderson, Dewey McDonald, and Robert Smith. Guy is in no way guaranteed of a roster spot, but considering how much the Colts appear to like him, he's a guy that we shouldn't rule out as we look at the team and their safety position.