Colts mailbag: What's the WR depth chart with Josh Downs back? Will Adonai Mitchell play?

The Colts have a win.

It wasn't a pretty win over the Bears on Sunday, 21-16 in a battle of struggling offenses with young quarterbacks, but it counts the same as any other.

As such, the vitriol in questions for the mailbag was not as high this week.

(To get in on these mailbags, follow me on X @NateAtkins_ , where I put out the call; or email longer questions to natkins@indystar.com.)

Now, the Colts welcome the 3-0 Steelers to town in what feels like a big moment to keep this season on the tracks before the annual trip to Jacksonville.

Let's get to it:

Question: "With the return of Josh Downs, whats the snap share going to look like moving forward with Adonai Mitchell?" -- @The_Mango_Peach via X

Answer: Last week, the majority of mailbag questions were about the run defense. This week, the popular question is about the shifting receiver room.

We'll get to the long-term in a moment, but let's start with the short-term:

The Colts have five wide receivers to find playing time for at the moment in Michael Pittman Jr., Alec Pierce, Josh Downs, Adonai Mitchell and Ashton Dulin.

Let's think about this in terms of roles:

Pittman is the team's Z receiver, which in this offense is its No. 1. He hasn't gotten going yet, with just 11 catches for 88 yards on a paltry 4.4 yards per target, and there's a few reasons for that: The passing game is everything but precise right now, and Pittman has been dealing with calf, back and quad issues since the first series of the season opener. But I think he's close to being himself again, and the Colts need to develop that chemistry with Richardson through some zone-beating screens, crossers and hitches that can settle and adjust to the coverage.

Pierce is the team's X receiver, which is the deep man. Posts, fades and deep digs are his game right now, and it's a critical component with Richardson's arm strength and the way a team with Richardson and Jonathan Taylor in the backfield wants to draw a safety closer to the line of scrimmage to vacate the sidelines. So far, he's the only one connecting well with Richardson, with nine catches for 225 yards and two touchdowns on an NFL-best 25 yards per reception.

Downs is the team's slot receiver. He helps pull defenses into nickel personnel, reveals some coverages and moves that personnel around with pre-snap motion. He is the best option the Colts have to settle into the zone coverage they're seeing as defenses try to keep Richardson in the pocket and force him to throw. He only turned in three catches for 22 yards in the opener, but Richardson missed him on a wide-open rub route and he also had a screen play that Mitchell missed the block on. Expect this connection to grow.

Dulin is earning some snaps because he has two traits that fit an offense with Richardson: deep speed and tenacious blocking. He's limited to that and will be a low-volume player, but these contrasting traits give coach Shane Steichen answers whether defenses line up in light or heavy personnel.

That leaves Mitchell as a bit of a misfit toy right now. The second-round rookie out of Texas has an elite athletic profile but hasn't proven to be reliable in the NFL yet. He saw his playing time shrink from 64.4% of the snaps in Week 1 to 58.9% in Week 2 to 12.5% in Week 3, when Downs made his return.

Pierce's emergence has taken away some room for Mitchell at the X spot. Pittman is going to command most of the Z reps, and Downs is far more reliable on the details in the slot.

It will likely move Mitchell to more of an occasional splash role right now. That's what he saw on Sunday, with just one target but it being a deep post where the Colts went with heavy protection to let him fly into open space along the left sideline. Richardson left too much air on the ball and Mitchell didn't fight for it in the air, allowing the closing safety to get his hands on it first.

Mitchell is just behind these other receivers right now. The Colts have to build some reliability for Richardson, so that's why they'll play a lot more.

But I expect Indianapolis to keep drawing up the occasional big play for Mitchell when he gets this open, and who knows how the light could come on once they hit a couple:

Question: "There’s no way the Colts end up keeping all four wide receivers once all their contracts are up. Do you think the Colts move on from Pittman once his contract is up or is it too soon to make an opinion on that?" -- @HumoIess via X

Answer: The reason I wanted to start with the short-term with the receivers is we have to see how that pans out before there's any projecting the long-term. That's true for Richardson and basically every player who is trying to catch the ball from him right now.

The good news for the Colts is they don't have to make decisions on any of these players this year. Pittman has three years remaining under contract, Pierce has two, Downs has three and Mitchell has four. Given the rate it's taken successes like Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts to develop their accuracy, they'll need into next season to begin sorting the puzzle out.

Pittman signed a three-year deal for $70 million this offseason intentionally to try to hit a high gear by next season. He saw the way the wide receiver market was exploding with deals to come after his for Justin Jefferson, Devonta Smith, Nico Collins, Mike Evans and others. And with the way the salary cap keeps rising, he knows it could bring a similar or higher deal for him if he renegotiates after two years, when he'll be 28 years old.

GO DEEPER: The multiple personalities of Michael Pittman Jr.

He's betting on himself becoming the type of go-to receiver for Richardson that the Colts feel compelled to lock in by then. Whether or not that happens, obviously, depends on what they build after this slow start.

But Pittman does profile to be a security blanket for Richardson once he can get in a flow after dealing with some quad, calf and back issues to start this season. If Richardson can throw earlier to Pittman and trust that he'll break open, Pittman has the catch radius at 6-4 to adjust to developing ball placement in order to boost his completion percentage. That's what Pittman brought to Carson Wentz in 2021, when he cashed in a 1,000-yard season as the only quarterback Wentz trusted. He's the only target in this offense who can get open in short areas of the field and who also has size.

Long term, as an outside receiver, that's a different weapon than what Downs can bring to the slot or Pierce can bring to the deep parts of the field. And, as we know, the Colts don't like to let in-house players they like to go to other teams. So, it really comes down to how Richardson and Pittman go about building that connection from here.

Question: "Why not include some extra QB runs before 4th quarter? Seems they only use them in panic mode." -- @PulgA88 via X

Answer: The Colts designed a couple runs for Richardson this week after only giving him one in the Packers game, when he dropped back 37 times. Unfortunately, one of those got blown up at the goal line when Drew Ogletree pulled across the formation and didn't find anyone to block. And it's those kinds of shots without payoff that I think have the Colts nervous right now.

They called an inverted veer for Richardson after Laiatu Latu's strip sack in an effort to seal the game. It's one of the best plays they have in the toolbox, as it gets Dulin blocking on the move, Taylor drawing the linebacker out of the box and Quenton Nelson as a lead blocker for an accelerating Richardson. But it does feel as if that's something they want to save for the absolutely critical moments.

I understand the Colts being cautious on those designs, as running into the biggest bodies in the teeth of a defense is how Cam Newton's career was shortened. Richardson has to be on the field to get the reps to develop this accuracy, so some of it feels like living to fight another day.

But to find Richardson success on a field right now with how opponents are living in two-deep shells to protect against the vertical passes, I think they need to get him to scramble more. It's harder with how teams are living in zone, with defenders stationary and having their eyes on the quarterback. But Richardson isn't the most athletic quarterback prospect in history for nothing: He can juke some of those players, split their spacing and also run over defensive backs once he scrambles to the perimeter.

If Taylor continues to pile up 100-yard games, defenses should adjust some and give Richardson chances to keep the ball on the zone-read. The Colts ran more of those against the Bears, including more in short yardage, and they need to keep Taylor rolling until defenses force them to beat them with someone else. And we know who that someone else can be.

Question: "As you've well documented, Rodney Thomas II was a pleasant surprise in his first season, but his performance dropped last year, and so far he's yet to re-establish himself as a starter. My question is, why? What changed? You'd normally expect a rookie to take a step forward in his sophomore season, so why is Thomas not able to do a better job than he did in 2022? It's very puzzling." -- Kevin Bastian via email

Answer: It's easy to see this all in 2024 as a matter of Nick Cross beating out Rodney Thomas II and wondering what changed. Something did change, but it's also worth remembering the circumstances that got Thomas on the field in the first place.

Back in 2022, Thomas and Cross were rookie safeties in the same draft, but they weren't actually competing for a position. Cross was a strong safety only back then, and he started the first two games before he was benched for Rodney McLeod when it became clear Cross was just too young to handle this level of competition. Thomas was a free safety, and he emerged in a timeshare with Julian Blackmon, who we have since learned needed a full year to recover from the Achilles he tore in October 2021.

Thomas really impressed his first training camp with how fast he picked up the game mentally and with his ability to tackle as the last line of defense. He then shined on the field with a team-high four interceptions, and it felt like the Colts really found something. And they did find something for a seventh-round pick, but time has shown how thin the margins are in a passing league for a position as difficult as his.

The Colts had pretty perfectly insulated Thomas in 2022 with McLeod at strong safety, with Stephon Gilmore as the top outside cornerback and with Blackmon as a rotational piece. Thomas' teammates called out what they were seeing before the snap and allowed him to anticipate in order to get to the right spots, which helped him make plays on the ball as well as showcase that tackling ability.

The settings just weren't the same without those two veterans last season, when the Colts started two rookies at outside cornerback. Thomas then saw his snaps increase from 718 the year before to 960, and now the league had film on this second-year defensive back.

Over time, Indianapolis realized it had more upside in a 22-year-old third-round pick in Cross than a 25-year-old seventh-round pick in Thomas and made the switch.

If Thomas can become a long-term backup with game experience and a quality special teamer, he'll still be a nice value in the seventh round. His story is a good showcase of how much environments matter when trying to play defense in this passing league.

Contact Nate Atkins at natkins@indystar.com. Follow him on X @NateAtkins_.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts mailbag: What's the WR depth chart with Josh Downs back? Will Adonai Mitchell play?