It’s been a long time since the Indianapolis Colts had a running game that didn’t stink. They took running back Trent Richardson at No. 3 overall in the 2012 NFL Draft and that didn’t fix a thing. They ended up trading him just a year later and still haven’t found an answer.
In 2015, the Colts brought in Frank Gore, who was aging like fine wine until he got to Indy. He wasn’t the answer either, finishing the season with a career-low 3.7 yards per carry. So here we are, going into the 2016 season and the Colts are looking for undrafted Josh Ferguson to emerge.
Thomas Rawls had his emergence with the Seattle Seahawks until he went out with an injury last year. But all they’ve has is an unpadded minicamp and the Colts expect it from Ferguson now. One thing is he was one of the best receiving backs in this year’s draft class.
So they might be getting quarterback Andrew Luck a check-down weapon. According to Stephen Holder of the Indianapolis Star the Colts have liked him enough to pull the trigger on him as early as the fourth round. But that didn’t end up being necessary as he went undrafted.
From there, the Colts lured him to Indy with a $10,000 signing bonus and a total of $35,000 in guarantees—numbers rarely seen for undrafted free agents. And offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski has already dangled a Darren Sproles type of role in front of Ferguson.
Owner Jim Irsay likens the 5’10”, 200 pounder to Sproles telling the team’s website, “We do feel that Gore has to be managed, but he has another year. “We do like some of the backs we’ve added. We think guys like Josh Ferguson have a chance to be special, time will tell.”
Head coach Chuck Pagano told Stampede Blue, “You know, again, it’s just in shorts, but he looks really good. He’s smart. He picks things up in a hurry. He’s very, very athletic. He’s a great receiver out of the back field. We can split him wide, we can displace him formationally.
“He’s a mismatch out in space. He’s got juice. He can go. He’s got great vision. Just not a third down back but he’s a good runner. He’s explosive and twitchy and he’s got a jump cut that’s really, really good.
“The rubber will meet the road when we get to Anderson and we put the pads on and see if that play speed is the same.”
While Ferguson lacks the power to break tackles in the trenches and the durability to handle a featured back’s workload, Pagano insists he’s not just a third-down back.
We’ll seen in about a month, right?