Colts hoping to benefit from other teams’ 2013 draft picks

The 2013 NFL Draft was a bad class all around, and the Colts certainly felt that: none of their seven picks earned a second contract with the team, and only one player even made it through the duration of his rookie deal.

Plenty of other teams had bad drafts too, however, and The Ringer’s Danny Kelly found an interesting stat about that 2013 draft class the other day: only 32 of the top 100 picks are still with the team that drafted them. Kelly also noted that 87 picks from that class (out of 254) changed teams this offseason.

That leads right into an interesting note regarding the Colts: they actually have ten players from that 2013 draft class on their team, yet none of them were drafted by the Colts!

The Colts this offseason signed nine players from that class in free agency, including the sixth overall pick, Barkevious Mingo. Here’s the list of 2013 draft picks that the Colts have on their roster right now:

Barkevious Mingo, OLB - 1st round (6th overall) pick by Browns

Johnathan Hankins, DT - 2nd round (49th overall) pick by Giants

Jon Bostic, LB - 2nd round (50th overall) pick by Bears

Margus Hunt, DL - 2nd round (53rd overall) pick by Bengals

Christine Michael, RB - 2nd round (62nd overall) pick by Seahawks

Brian Schwenke, OL - 4th round (107th overall) pick by Titans

John Simon, OLB - 4th round (129th overall) pick by Texans

LaVar Edwards, OLB - 5th round (142nd overall) pick by Titans

Jeff Locke, P - 5th round (135th overall) pick by Vikings

Josh Boyd, DT - 5th round (167th overall) pick by Packers

And as Kelly noted about the top 100 picks, the Colts have five players on their team currently who were top 100 picks in the 2013 draft, and they’ve had eight top 100 picks on their team total since that draft. Overall, the Colts have brought in 21 picks from that 2013 class.

In one sense, it does make sense why the Colts have brought in so many players from that 2013 draft class this offseason. They’ve spent four years in the league and, for many of them, their rookie contracts just expired. So that means that they were available in free agency, were still relatively young, and have some upside too (the reason they were drafted in the first place). For a rebuilding team like the Colts, desperate to shore up their defense, making these signings makes sense. Some of the players - like Johnathan Hankins, for example - have already produced in the NFL, while others - like Margus Hunt - represent draft busts looking to turn around their career.

The bottom line is that the Colts are trying to take advantage of the 2013 draft picks switching teams and trying to see what they can get out of those guys. Since they don’t have anybody left from their own 2013 draft, it makes sense to try to find players from other teams’ classes to at least somewhat solidify their team this offseason.