In Indianapolis, the injury cycle hit the Colts front and back lines, but the cornerback room took the blunt end first. Justin Walley’s season-ending torn ACL leaves a vacancy opposite Charvarius Ward, with JuJu Brents and Jaylon Jones nursing hamstring issues. Samuel Womack III looms as the likely Week 1 starter if Brents and Jones aren’t ready, turning a once-deep depth chart into a tighter, high-stakes rotational assignment just weeks before the regular season.

Walley, a third-round rookie, had drawn strong coaching praise, amplifying the concern over the group’s ceiling should depth evaporate. Womack’s 2024 tape—17 games, eight starts, and a solid PFF 71.4—suggests a capable stopgap, but the drop-off if he’s asked to handle heavy workloads is real. The club is expected to explore veteran reinforcement, with Stephon Gilmore floated as a familiar option who previously spent 2022 in this system.

Compounding the challenge, Anthony Richardson’s finger issue adds a layer of unpredictability to a unit already dealing with multiple injury fronts. The Colts must chart a path to resilience, whether through a veteran signing, a reshuffled depth chart, or a combination of both. For fantasy owners and bettors, the early-week risk to Colts pass defense means opponents’ aerial games could be more exploitable until depth stabilizes.

Bottom line: the Colts face a month of roster churn at cornerback, with the potential addition of a veteran like Gilmore looming large for how the defense might step forward and how fantasy outputs might shift in Weeks 1 and 2.