One conversation, a neck injury and need: Why the Colts taking Laiatu Latu was a surprise

INDIANAPOLIS — The Colts surprised just about everybody in the first round of the NFL Draft.

Even the man they ended up picking.

The way the first round played out, the NFL making draft history by snapping up offensive players with every one of the first 14 picks — doubling the previous high for offensive players to start a draft — it looked like Chris Ballard’s choice would be fairly obvious at No. 15.

Every defensive player remained available, the Colts have a dire need at cornerback, and Indianapolis has almost always used its top picks on positions of need during Ballard’s tenure.

Doyel: Colts pick UCLA’s Laiatu Latu, possibly best pass-rusher – and story – in 2024 draft

If the Colts wanted to go somewhere other than cornerback, the move would likely be for a explosive edge rusher, Ballard’s white whale in his tenure and the finishing piece to a pass rush that produced 51 sacks last season, the most the franchise has produced in 40 seasons in Indianapolis.

Indianapolis has been hunting the finishing piece this offseason. The Colts pursued former Vikings star Danielle Hunter in free agency before losing him to the Texans. Alabama’s Dallas Turner, long and explosive and productive in the SEC, seemed like the pick to most draft analysts when Indianapolis went on the clock.

Ballard had another defensive end in mind.

"We think we got the best defensive player in the draft," Ballard said.

The Colts used the No. 15 pick to take UCLA defensive end Laiatu Latu, another explosive, athletic pass rusher with even better collegiate production than Turner, but far more significant medical concerns than the Alabama star, stemming from a cervical neck fusion at Washington that briefly threatened retirement.

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“That phone call came up from Indianapolis,” Latu said. “My agent (had) just told me, ‘Don’t worry about the next couple of picks,’ and then I get the call and I’m a Colt.”

Latu hadn’t talked to Indianapolis at all in the predraft process.

Indianapolis had plenty of chances to talk to the UCLA star. Latu spent an entire week playing in the Senior Bowl, held a ton of formal interviews at the NFL scouting combine and took official visits to a half-dozen teams.

The Colts only talked to him once.

An informal meeting in the halls of the Combine, the kind of quick conversation NFL teams have with hundreds of prospects in Indianapolis that week.

"Sometimes the ones that are really clean, you do your work and you move forward," Ballard said. "You've got a good feel for who they are."

The Colts loved Latu’s combination of production and traits, the blend of skills Ballard hasn’t been able to find in any of his previous attempts to draft and develop an elite edge rusher. None of the other speedy edge rushers Ballard’s used high picks to draft before — Tarell Basham, Kemoko Turay, Ben Banogu and Kwity Paye — ever produced more than 10 sacks in a collegiate season.

When Ballard picked those players, he was betting on the team's ability to refine the player's raw traits into a polished pass rusher.

Latu already knows how to get to the quarterback.

"He’s a natural rusher,” Ballard said. “He’s a three-way rusher, where he’s got a great long-arm down the middle, he’s got a great feel of when to counter inside and he can win on the edge. He’s kind of got all of it.”

When Washington would not clear his neck injury, Latu transferred to UCLA and immediately produced 10.5 sacks, 12.5 tackles-for-loss and three forced fumbles in 2022, then emerged as the nation’s best edge rusher in 2023, racking up 13 sacks, 21.5 tackles-for-loss and two interceptions, winning the Lombardi Award as the nation’s best lineman.

“I’m someone that can be comfortable in any uncomfortable situation,” Latu said. “That’s how I look at pass rushing. I’ve got a bunch of moves in my repertoire. I have three main moves, but I make sure that I’m dialed in with a lot, because you never know what’s going to come out at game time.”

Latu can play.

The question is the neck injury.

Latu missed the entire 2020 season due to the neck injury, then underwent a cervical neck fusion in 2021, and Washington’s team doctors refused to clear him.

“It wasn’t handled in the right way,” Latu said. “I didn’t have any physical examinations with a doctor at that time. It was just an opinion without looking at my physical, without giving me any kind of test. … I feel like it wasn’t handled in the best way.”

Latu was told he’d never play football again.

He set out to prove that prediction wrong. The medical staff at Washington, the doctors who wrote off his football career without a full medical examination. Latu arrived at UCLA as a man on a mission, spending his offseasons training with defensive line coach Eddy McGilvra, who also trains Kwity Paye, Dayo Odeyingbo and several other Colts defensive linemen.

His play at UCLA made him the most polished pass rusher in the draft.

The Indianapolis doctors were comfortable enough with the neck injury to make Latu a first-round pick.

“I know the medical’s going to be a question, but it’s like our doctors said, he just played two years with it,” Ballard said. “We asked them a ton of questions — career length, what’s the chances of it happening again.”

The kind of first-round pick Ballard hasn’t made very often during his Indianapolis tenure. Ballard has almost always addressed his area of greatest need right away, and the Colts were already bringing back every key piece from a productive pass rush last season.

But the Colts clearly believe the pass rush can get to another level, and Ballard believes Latu is the man to take them there, instantly bolstering a defense that finished 28th in the NFL in points allowed last season.

"I think he's going to produce pretty quickly as a rusher," Ballard said. "I think he knows how to rush. Now, of course, there's going to be an adjustment period. ... But this guy's a pretty polished product."

The kind of pass rusher Ballard's always coveted before.

And never had the opportunity to take until now.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Why the Colts taking edge rusher Laiatu Latu was a surprise