Report: Don’t discount possibility of Forrest Lamp to Colts

The NFL Draft is tonight, and we don’t really have any idea who the Colts will take.

We also don’t know even what position the Colts will target, with EDGE and cornerback being obvious options, as well as inside linebacker - but offensive line and defensive line are possibilities, too.

We always need to be cautious with reports right around draft time, but they’re still worth pointing out. The Indianapolis Star’s Stephen Holder made sure to point out that he’s not making a prediction, but did say that he’s hearing Forrest Lamp’s name in connection to the Colts.

This would be a very interesting and highly controversial pick for the Colts if they were to actually select Lamp with the 15th overall pick. Lamp was a four-year starter at Western Kentucky, where he started 51 games. He mainly played left tackle in college, but in the NFL he’s projected to play guard (though that position flexibility will be an added bonus).

There are two main opinions from Colts fans on taking an offensive lineman in the first round. On the one hand, some fans would correctly argue that Lamp is a good player and would help the Colts. Furthermore, as Brett Mock correctly pointed out, if the Colts really want to upgrade their offensive line it will have to be early in the draft. This isn’t a very deep or good offensive line class, so unless Chris Ballard wants to take a mid-to-late round project player, addressing it early is a must (assuming he does indeed want to add a lineman).

On the other hand, however, some fans would correctly argue that Lamp is unlikely to be the best overall player remaining on the board when the Colts select at number 15 overall, while Lamp also doesn’t fill one of the more pressing needs. So there would be fans who think that Lamp wasn’t the best value pick at the spot and that there were better players who addressed bigger needs (and they’d very likely be right).

Those two views both holding a lot of truth makes this an interesting discussion to have: is Forrest Lamp the best option for the Colts in the first round? He’s a good player and would help the team, but I think the main question would be about whether he’s the best pick or not.

I’ll throw out one other note that must be considered, especially so close to the draft: maybe this isn’t even true. That’s nothing against Holder, who’s a very credible reporter, but as Chris Ballard himself admitted last week “everybody’s lying right now.” Teams are very intentional about trying to work the draft board to their favor, and that could include trying to make teams trade up to get a player that they really like. So if a team wants a lineman in this year’s class that’s not very deep at the spot, they might hear that the Colts like Lamp and think that they need to trade up to take him. The Colts, who would be fine with trading down, might not mind that at all.

Anyway, we’ll find out before the day is over, and here’s the thing that I think remains most clear: nobody has any idea how this draft is going to go. That’s true every year, but it seems especially this year there’s a lot of uncertainty. At this point, we probably can’t really rule out any position (besides the obvious one) for the Colts in the first round.