Colts Wisely Cut Ties with LaRon Landry, Must Upgrade Safeties in Free Agency

Injuries and performance-enhancing drug suspensions epitomize LaRon Landry's career. Beneath that lies a fact the Colts should have recognized earlier: the pesky reality that Landry has never lived up to the hype he generated as a top-10 pick out of LSU.

So the Colts have no one to blame but themselves for the release of Landry. They projected him into a role they should have never expected him to fill. By cutting Landry, the Colts saved $2.25 million on this year's salary cap. They ate $3.5 million in dead money, per Over The Cap. The real savings will come when Colts fans don't have to watch him bite on a play-action pass, leaving the middle of the field open. Over and over again. 

Safety is a shaky position group for Indianapolis coming into this offseason. While Mike Adams played well last season, he's a free agent slated to turn 34 in March. At that age, even the best of players can suffer nose dives in skill and talent. Just ask former Vikings cornerback Antoine Winfield. Winfield went from playing like an All-Pro to retiring. Over the course of a single offseason.

Sergio Brown, the third safety this season, is also a free agent. Brown has accumulated 100 or more snaps in just two separate seasons. The Patriots gave up on him as a starter in 2011 after about two weeks. Still, without him, Indianapolis' depth chart at the position starts with Delano Howell. It ends with, well, Delano Howell.

Year	Team	Snaps	PFF Pass Coverage	PFF Run Defense
2011	NE	349	-1.7	-1.4
2014	IND	539	+3.9	+1.3

Indianapolis' success with Brown and Adams proves that it doesn't need to spend with reckless abandon to solve safety. (Doing anything with reckless abandon should be Landry's job.) That said, if it does, the obvious target would be Patriots safety Devin McCourty. 

McCourty is a homegrown star. It would be shocking if the Patriots didn't re-sign him. As Bleacher Report's Kyle Rodriguez says, McCourty is something of a pipe dream for Colts fans. But McCourty would be a terrific building block alongside cornerback Vontae Davis. And hey, maybe he can tell defensive coordinator Greg Manusky how to stop the Pats run game. I hear that's a problem.

Much like Adams, the rest of this safety free-agency class has some warts. Where Adams has age, Louis Delmas almost never stays healthy. Antrel Rolle tackled like he took pregame grease baths. The Giants benched Stevie Brown last season. Nate Allen has a long history of being Nate Allen. There are no surefire solutions. 

Let's assume McCourty is off the table. Colts general manager Ryan Grigson's biggest mandate is to not repeat the Landry signing. Grigson will need to pick and choose the right safeties. When in doubt, Grigson will need to remember to pick up manager's specials, not pay full retail. That's what created the hole he's trying to fill in the first place.

Player	Team	Age	Snaps	PFF Pass Coverage	PFF Run Defense	Team FO Pass Defense DVOA
Devin McCourty	NE	28	1018	+5.9	+5.0	2.0% (12)
Rahim Moore	DEN	25	1074	+2.5	-3.6	-7.3% (5)
Antrel Rolle	NYG	32	1071	+0.5	-10.5	9.0% (21)
Louis Delmas	MIA	28	844	+0.7	-0.8	7.2% (16)
Marcus Gilchrist	SD	26	1014	-7.6	+0.7	16.4% (25)
Stevie Brown	NYG	28	588	-2.9	+2.3	9.0% (21)
Dawan Landry	NYJ	32	970	+5.2	+4.2	15.9% (24)
Nate Allen	PHI	27	1121	+1.9	+2.3	8.8% (20)
Da'Norris Searcy	BUF	26	666	+2.7	+5.6	-18.1% (1)
Mike Adams	IND	34	1034	+11.6	-1.3	1.1% (10)

The Colts continue to employ Davis, Greg Toler and Darius Butler. They play aggressive man coverage often with their corners. They don't need their safeties to shut down someone in man coverage to win. It would be nice if they signed someone with the upside to do that, of course. 

But it's my opinion that the Colts should upgrade their edge-rushers first. Safeties don't need to cover when the quarterback is running backward. Mix aggressive man coverage with a pass rush, and the defense dictates the game to quarterbacks.  Indianapolis would benefit more from the disruption than most defenses because of this. 

Of course, the optimal solution would be to do both. But, if we're prioritizing Indianapolis' shopping list, receivers and pass-rushers should come first. The Colts can't make great safeties flood the free-agent market. As they learned with Landry, though, that doesn't mean they should pretend great safeties are out there. 

All DYAR and DVOA numbers cited are courtesy of Football Outsiders. Learn more about DVOA here.

 

Rivers McCown is the AFC South lead writer for Bleacher Report and the co-host of the Three-Cone Drill podcast. His work has also appeared on Football Outsiders and ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter at @riversmccown.