Insider: Colts have to like Hankins' early swagger

Zak Keefer | IndyStar

Show Caption Hide Caption Colts DT Johnathan Hankins talks about the Colts defense. Colts DT Johnathan Hankins talks about the Colts defense and his expectations. (Matt Kryger/IndyStar)

INDIANAPOLIS – He’s coming with the bluster and the braggadocio, and he’s not shying away from it, not even if everyone around here knows how much his coach loathes that sort of thing.

Johnathan Hankins sees it like this: “If you don’t set high goals, then what are you working for?”

Coach Chuck Pagano sees it like this: “(If you) put it out there, you better show up.”

Both have a point. Both are right. Hankins is the prized offseason acquisition of the Indianapolis Colts’ overhauled defense, a hulking run-stuffing lineman anxious to prove he’s worth the three-year, $27 million contract he just signed. Pagano is the Colts’ sixth-year coach, anxious to prove he should still be here come 2018, trying, too, to temper early summer ambition while a long season lurks around the corner.

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Hankins is a big man who’s talked a big game recently, even going as far as telling NFL Network the Colts have “probably the best defense in the AFC.” In reality, they do not. They have nowhere close to the best defense in the AFC.

What they do have — anyone’s guess at this point — will reveal itself over the course of 17 weeks beginning in September. What we know: A unit that finished third from the bottom in points allowed last year was gashed in the offseason by new general Chris Ballard. Then it was rebuilt.

Right now, it’s hard to call this defense anything besides what it is: a massive question mark.

But Hankins’ chutzpah is, in a lot of ways, a refreshing deviation from the norm over at the Colts’ West 56th Street headquarters. Too often it’s a flood of hollowed-out clichés, talk about process and wood choppin’ and taking things one a day at a time. Snooze.

Maybe this is what this defense needs. An edge. A swagger. A leader who ain’t backing down.

“You always want to have high standards ...” Hankins said this week. “I feel that was necessary for me (to speak up), especially with the new GM and the new atmosphere they want around here.”

That atmosphere: No longer can it be Andrew Luck and Co. in Indianapolis. Since taking over, Ballard has made it his singular mission to lift the mounting pressure off Luck’s sturdy shoulders. That means building a defense that can pull its weight, one that won’t require Luck and the offense to score 35 points every Sunday.

This team won’t go anywhere until it does.

And give the newcomer credit: Hankins talks of what he knows. He was a member of a New York Giants’ defense that finished 32nd — that’s dead last — in the league in 2015. It allowed nearly 28 points a game. “Pretty bad,” was how he described it. A year later, bolstered by a still-developing core and some timely free agent signings, the Giants leapt to second in the league, allowing just 17.8 points per game.

From 30th to 2nd. In one season.

News to the Colts: It can be done.

Barring a borderline miracle, the Colts won’t ascend to the league’s second-ranked defense in 2017. But there is a certain level of optimism surrounding this revamped unit, starting with this reality: It cannot be worse than it was. Gone is an aging core that was scraping just to be average. In its stead is a younger group looking to make its mark.

Hankins has made it clear since the day he arrived: He didn’t sign with the Colts to join a unit that’s holding the offense back.

The mission comes from the top. Just listen to what Colts owner Jim Irsay said after last spring’s NFL draft, after the division rival Jaguars plucked LSU’s beast of a running back, Leonard Fournette, with the fourth overall pick.

“When you see him, you better have some physical front-seven guys who are ready to mix it up,” Irsay said. “This is going to be a physical guy who’s going to be running it down our throats if we don’t stop him. He is a force.”

That’s where Hankins comes in. Not once in the last decade have the Colts finished in the top 15 against the run. Not once.

He’s here to fix that.

His new coach, Pagano, is fine with the belief. He’s just not a fan of the bluster.

“You know, if you’re going to do it, you gotta back it up,” Pagano said this week when asked of Hankins’ comments.

“Guys can use whatever they want, bulletin board material,” Pagano added. “I don’t sit there and promote that. I don’t think any coach at any level promotes that. I just know that if you’re going to talk, you better walk it.”

Hankins intends to. Notified of a stunning reality on Tuesday — that no Colts’ interior defensive lineman has made a Pro Bowl in the team’s entire 33-year Indianapolis era — Hankins smiled. He didn’t seem fazed.

“We can get somebody there,” he said confidently.

That somebody, in his mind, is Johnathan Hankins.

If you don’t set high goals, what are you working for?

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