Colts' Samson Ebukam is a True Wild Card for 2025 Season

The recent history of edge rushers returning from Achilles tears is quite bleak. Jaelan Phillips was once an ascending young pass rusher with 6.5 sacks through eight games back in 2023. He tore his Achilles and remarkably returned for the 2024 season, notching one sack in four games before tearing his ACL in Week 5.

Carl Lawson appeared to be on the fast track to NFL stardom back in 2021, coming off a season with the Cincinnati Bengals where he had an outstanding 18.1% pass rush win rate and 58 hurries. He tore his Achilles in 2021 and returned in 2022 with more sacks, but his pass rush win rate and overall hurries numbers dipped far below his career averages. At just 30 years old, Lawson is now more of a bottom-of-the-rotation player.

Romeo Okwara was another player on the star track back in 2020, as he parlayed a career-high 10-sack season into a massive contract with the Detroit Lions. He tore his Achilles a month into the next season, and has logged just four total sacks in the three years since. He currently remains an unsigned free agent, unlikely to ever play again, despite being the same age as Ebukam.

Looking at past examples of other players may not be the best way to project how the recovery goes for Ebukam, but it does show just how difficult this injury is for pass rushers. The return to play rate isn't especially high, and even if a player does return, there is usually a pretty steep drop-off for the rest of that player's career.

Ebukam is a warrior who has worked his way up from rotational backup to legit starting edge rusher, but this challenge will likely be the biggest one that he has faced so far. The Colts are relying on a 30-year-old pass rusher to defy the odds, but Chris Ballard did say last season that "if you're going to bet on someone, you bet on Samson."

The Colts are taking a big swing on Ebukam by bringing him back this season, and he has an opportunity to become a major outlier in a positive way. Training camp will be key for him to get his legs under him and showcase that he still has the athleticism and the strength that made him so dominant in the past. If he can get back to form and bring back his 8-10 sacks a year pace, the Colts' edge rush room will be in good hands going forward.