AFC South Notes: Colts, Jaguars, Texans

Colts

Colts GM Chris Ballard said the team has shrunk its draft board each year and hopes to continue doing so.

“I’d say this year we had 170 players on the board which is way down from where it was before,” Ballard said via Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer. “I think last year we were at 220, I can’t even remember the number from my first year. But yeah, it makes it easier to navigate when you have fewer names that you know fit what you want. I think when we really get it right, and we get it down to about 125, 150, that’s when we’ll have really honed down exactly what a Colt is for our schemes. And not only from a player perspective, how he’s going to fit on the team, but also from a character perspective.” 

Jaguars

• ESPN’s Michael DiRocco writes that out of 13 major free-agent quarterback signings since 2000, only three (Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, Drew Brees) worked out for their teams. 
• DiRocco says seven out of the other ten signings failed to lead their teams to the playoffs, while two others didn’t even last a month. 
• While the historical trend is discouraging, Jaguars VP Tom Coughlin believes QB Nick Foles has shown enough reason to believe he’ll buck that trend: “You think through each year, how things happened to him, how he progressed, but it is very difficult not to recognize under what circumstances he came into play in both [the past two] seasons and how he responded.”
• Jaguars RB Leonard Fournette pled no contest to driving without a valid driver’s license and in exchange charges for speeding and illegal tint were dropped. (TMZ)

Texans

• According to Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, the Texans hope rookie OTs Tytus Howard and Max Scharping can develop into bookend tackles. 
• While the two develop, the Texans hope OTs Matt Kalil and Seantrel Henderson can serve as short-term insurance.