Colts sign nine players to practice squad

With the waiver period for yesterday’s cuts now over, teams can begin signing players who weren’t claimed to their practice squads.

Who’s eligible for the practice squad? It’s (somewhat) simple, really. Each team has ten practice squad spots, and no more than four of them can be taken up by a player with two accrued NFL seasons. Anyone with more than that is ineligible. Furthermore, a player can only spend no more than three seasons on a team’s practice squad.

The practice squad changes quite a bit as the season goes on, as players are cut and signed almost weekly. Furthermore, any player on a practice squad can be signed to another team’s active roster, so there is often change happening in that way as well.

So while we know this group will change as the season goes on, here are the Colts’ initial practice squad moves:

Sterling Bailey, DE

Trevor Bates, ILB

Lee Hightower, S

Mike Miller, TE

Christopher Milton, CB

Kelcy Quarles, DT

Adam Redmond, G

Tevaun Smith, WR

Jeremy Vujnovich, T

The team still has one practice squad spot left to fill.

There aren’t too many surprises on this list, as most of these guys are players the Colts have seemed to like during the offseason, training camp, and/or preseason and wanted to keep working with. Perhaps the most notable aspect is who isn’t on the list, as Earl Okine wasn’t signed to the practice squad. There’s still one spot open and Okine could certainly sign at any point, but I would’ve thought he’d be a prime candidate for the practice squad after showing some nice pass rush moves this preseason.

One other very interesting note is that Trevor Bates was listed by the Colts as an inside linebacker in their press release. We saw Bates play inside some on Thursday night, and he said on the radio earlier this year that the Colts were thinking about moving him to inside linebacker at some point down the road. It’s likely that he can be a guy that provides depth at both spots, but perhaps the inside linebacker designation reveals at least somewhat what the plan for him is going to be as the team works with him on the practice squad.