Zak Keefer

zak.keefer@indystar.com

INDIANAPOLIS – Vontae Davis sees the young guns coming, ready to step into his locker room, all these babyfaced 21- and 22-year-olds who just heard their name called in the NFL draft.

Malik Hooker? Quincy Wilson? Maybe even Nate Hairston? Could be the future of the Indianapolis Colts’ defense. Could be.

Davis? He’s the present. The linchpin. He’s also, suddenly, the teacher.

Along with fellow defensive back Darius Butler, who also arrived in Indy in 2012, Davis is the Colts’ last man standing on defense. The men he lined up alongside for years in Indianapolis have moved on — they’ve retired, or been cut, or not been re-signed. The turnover is staggering: Davis could be one of only two returning starters come Week 1.

Robert Mathis is gone. Erik Walden’s gone. D’Qwell Jackson. Mike Adams. Art Jones. Trent Cole. Patrick Robinson.

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Davis is still here, preparing for his ninth season in the NFL and sixth with the Colts, the established veteran ready to mentor an infusion of youth.

“Now it’s on me and Darius Butler; we have to be the guys who keep that room together,” Davis said Wednesday.

Of course the Colts kept Davis: He’s the unit’s best player, and elite cornerbacks are among this league’s most valuable assets.

It’s no coincidence Davis’ best season in the NFL — 2014 — coincided with the Colts’ best defensive year of the Chuck Pagano era. Opposing quarterbacks managed a laughable 38.8 passer rating against him that season, best of any corner in football. Back then, Davis was so good, his lockdown ability could camouflage the Colts’ glaring lack of a pass rush. They made it all the way to the AFC Championship Game.

It’s all gone downhill since.

The past two seasons were different. They were tougher. Davis has fought off injuries more frequently than any player on the roster, and they caught up to him late last year, when his play slid from its typical elite level. At one point late last year, he’d spent as many days on the practice field (14) as he had off it. It was one thing after another: He slogged through an ankle injury, a concussion, another ankle, a groin.

“This game, man, is a 100 percent injury rate,” he said then.

All the while, no Colt — besides maybe Andrew Luck, who was taking pain-killing shots to play as far back as 2015 — fought through injuries more valiantly than Davis. The two-time Pro Bowler has missed practice days due to 14 different injuries in his time in Indianapolis.

Somehow, he’s missed only nine of 86 starts.

As he turns the page to his ninth year, Davis welcomes in a much-needed youth movement to the Colts’ defensive backfield. The Colts spent their top two picks in last week’s draft on the secondary, grabbing Ohio State safety Malik Hooker 15th overall and Florida corner Quincy Wilson in the second round. (Hairston, out of Temple, was grabbed in the fifth round.) The need was there, and the door is now open: Don’t be shocked if both Hooker and Wilson work their way into the starting lineup by the season opener.

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“We drafted those guys to come in and play right away,” Davis said. “You don’t go first or second round unless you’re talented.”

He would know. He was a first-rounder coming out of Illinois in 2009; it wasn’t until he was traded to Indianapolis three years later that Davis fully lived up to his potential.

Simply by being there, by lasting nine years in the league, Davis becomes a mentor in a way he never has before. Playing in the defensive backfield is tough enough; it’s even tougher on rookies. Opposing quarterbacks target them mercilessly. If they’re not ready, it gets ugly quickly.

Even if they are ready, it still gets ugly.

As Davis has pointed out dozens of times over the past few seasons, “As a cornerback, you’re sort of on an island. You’ve got to have short-term memory."

“Those guys being young probably won’t say it, but they’re going to come in and look up to me,” he added. “That’s what young guys do. They come in and look up to veterans who’ve made a name in the league ... they’re going to be watching me, all the time.”

Davis also sees what first-year General Manager Chris Ballard is doing: stacking each position group with able bodies in a clear effort to bolster competition throughout training camp and the rest of the season. Beyond Davis at corner and Clayton Geathers at safety, every other starting job on the defense appears up for grabs. That’s how Ballard wants it. Training camp should be fun.

“There’s no position that’s solidified,” Davis said. “I’m gonna push these guys to try and take my spot. We’re going to push that competition.”

In the back of Davis’ mind is the fact that he’s entering a contract year; he’ll be 29 next March when the Colts have to decide whether to keep him or not. While Ballard’s decisions have made it clear he’s chasing a younger defense, Davis still owns immense value. At his best, he’s one of the top corners in the league, a press-coverage specialist who any unit can plug in on one side of the defense and watch him work.

But after two seesawing years, he’ll have to prove it all again. If 2015 and 2016 have told us anything, it’s this: The Colts defense goes as Vontae Davis goes. This team needs its best defensive player playing his best.

“It falls on me,” he said. “I’m the leader of that group. If I’m not playing well, I don’t think nobody’s going to play well. I gotta play my best ball all the time, and that’s the approach I’m taking.”

Call IndyStar reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134. Follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.