Gregg Doyel

gregg.doyel@indystar.com

INDIANAPOLIS – He is falling to the Indianapolis Colts now, falling like a rock, falling like an undiluted dream. Michigan’s Jabrill Peppers almost certainly will be there when the Colts are on the clock with the 15th overall pick in the 2017 NFL draft, and first-year general manager Chris Ballard will have a decision to make.

Ballard is a card-carrying member of the BPA Party — Best Player Available — and as such has said he will prioritize a player’s talent over the Colts’ needs. But sometimes the planets align and the urine test complies and you can address both with the same pick. If he’s there at No. 15, Peppers would almost certainly be the Best Player Available. And on defense, the Colts have Needs.

Lookit, this team has needs everywhere. Ballard could throw a dart at the Colts’ 2017 depth chart and hit a bull’s-eye on a need, not because he’s all that good at darts — maybe he is, who knows? — but because the Colts have needs everywhere but quarterback. Andrew Luck is coming off January shoulder surgery that will delay his participation in offseason workouts, but the Colts don’t need a quarterback. OK, fine, they don’t need a kicker either. They have the GOAT, the greatest ever at the position, Adam Vinatieri.

They need everything else.

More Colts:

Insider: Who are the Colts targeting at cornerback?

Draft preview: Which RB will the Colts take?

Some needs are bigger than others, I’ll give you that. The Colts have enough receivers to get by, though an offense like this could always use more. They have enough tight ends, although: ibid.

They have a lot of offensive lineman, and they have a lot of linebackers after Ballard cornered the market at that position in free agency. They don’t have anyone at any of those positions headed to the Pro Bowl. Which means they need to get better there.

And Ballard is big on competition, a by-the-book general manager if the book is “The Hunger Games.” He wants a locker room on edge, a locker room where talent is always arriving — by trade, by free agency, by draft — and competition culls the weakest from the herd.

This herd at 56th Street, it’s weak. The last GM made it so, missing on draft picks and missing on free agents and whiffing so often that Ryan Grigson kept in business that wind farm on I-65.

Ballard will be better, I’m sure of that, though he hasn’t shown it yet. He shopped this offseason at the free agent thrift store, grabbing used bargains at linebacker and receiver and linebacker and defensive line and also at linebacker. The Colts added a lot of new talent. And a lot of linebackers.

The Colts haven’t added anybody special. Not yet. That’s what makes Thursday so important, and to a lesser extent Friday and Saturday as well. But especially Thursday, when Ballard has the chance to give this Colts team something it has lacked since Robert Mathis was running amok in 2013: a defensive player to fear.

The Colts have had quality defensive players since then, don’t get me wrong, but the best of the bunch — cornerback Vontae Davis — was defined not by the plays he made, but by the plays he forced someone else to make. Because when Davis is at his best, quarterbacks don’t throw it near him.

The Colts defense needs a playmaker. Well, it needs three or four playmakers, but let’s not get greedy. Let’s settle on one for now, and seeing how Ballard wasn’t able to — maybe wasn’t going to — throw money at the problem in free agency, he has backed himself into the corner that is the 2017 NFL draft. He has to get a defensive stud in the draft, or the 2017 Colts will be without one. Again.

On the bright side, this draft is believed to be loaded — I mean, abnormally loaded — with stars on the defensive side. And as luck would have it, one of those studs has an issue, a red flag you might say, that should have him still on the board when the Colts take their turn with the 15th overall pick.

Jabrill Peppers is the stud, and by now you’ve surely heard the problem. The red flag, you might say. Peppers peed too purely at the 2017 NFL combine here in Indianapolis, literally presented a specimen that had too much H2O. A dilute sample, they call it — “diluted sample” sounds better to me, but whatever — and a dilute(d) sample implies obfuscation by urination.

Hiding something, in other words. Drinking so much water that whatever else was in his system, it would be masked by the overwhelming amount of water. Peppers’ camp released a statement saying he was sick before the combine, knew he’d be asked to work out at Lucas Oil Stadium not just at safety but also at linebacker, and prepared by “drinking 8 to 10 bottles of water before he went to bed.”

Hence, the dilute sample.

Look, I don’t care if his dog ate his homework and then provided the water-full waterfall. It’s like Chris Ballard was telling us this past week when asked for his stance on drafting a so-called character risk: “These guys are young. They make mistakes.”

Did Peppers make a mistake, or did he make a mistake? Doesn’t much matter to me. Far as we know, he has never failed a drug test before. This is not Hamilton Southeastern’s Randy Gregory failing a drug test at the 2015 NFL combine, the reddest of red flags given his two failed drug tests while at Nebraska. Gregory fell to the second round, where the Dallas Cowboys took him because of course they did, and they have been rewarded by seeing Gregory fail so many drug tests in the NFL that he has been suspended for the upcoming season.

Peppers is not Gregory.

Peppers is the most interesting player in the 2017 draft class, a linebacker or a safety, unless he’s a cornerback, and he’s also a kick returner and a potential wildcat quarterback.

Whatever he is, Peppers has my vote. Luckily for Colts fans, Ballard didn’t ask. The Colts’ GM will lean on his scouts before making the pick, and he says: “Ultimately, the pick is on me. If the guy doesn’t work out, then that’s my fault. That’s on me for not making sure we did everything we could to make the player successful. If we get it right, then that’s for us. We, as a group, got it right.”

Too many times for too many years, the Colts have gotten this day wrong. That’s why they missed the playoffs each of the last two seasons. That’s why they have a new general manager. Now it is Chris Ballard on the clock, and let's not be diluted, er, deluded. He needs to grab the BDPA: best defensive player available.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter:@GreggDoyelStar or atfacebook.com/gregg.doyel.