INDIANAPOLIS — Kwity Paye has become a reliable NFL starter.
The Raiders confirmed Paye’s status on Monday, reportedly signing the former Colts defensive end to a three-year deal worth $32 million in guarantees and $48 million overall.
Paye will likely step into the starting spot left open by Las Vegas’s decision to trade star defensive end Maxx Crosby to the Ravens last week for two first-round picks.
Big and strong at the point of attack, Paye can set the edge in the running game, and he has 30.5 career sacks in five seasons, including two years with more than eight sacks.
But Paye was available because he was never able to develop into the pass rusher the Colts thought he could be when Indianapolis drafted Paye with the No. 21 pick of the 2021 NFL Draft.
Paye was a freakish athlete, displaying remarkable speed and otherworldly agility for a player who carried 260-plus pounds on his frame.
Because of those tools, Indianapolis general manager Chris Ballard believed Paye would be able to develop into a difference-making edge rusher at the NFL level, even though he had just 10.5 sacks in three seasons at Michigan.
Paye tried to live up to those expectations, constantly working on pass-rush moves and trying to find a better way to use his athleticism and speed off the edge.
Ultimately, it never materialized. Paye did record a career-best 8.5 sacks in 2023 and followed it up with eight sacks in 2024, but he never posted more than 12 quarterback hits in an NFL season despite making 74 starts in Indianapolis.
Paye picked up most of his sacks in a Colts uniform as a second-effort rusher, disengaging from the blocker in front of him to chase down a quarterback flushed from the pocket by another player, a skill that has value but falls short of the difference-making type of game wrecker the Colts were hoping to get when they drafted him.
The loss of DeForest Buckner put everything in perspective last season.
With Buckner in the lineup, Indianapolis recorded 26 sacks in the first eight games; Paye had three sacks and six quarterback hits in those games. When Buckner went down, Paye wasn’t able to step into the void; he had just one sack and three hits the rest of the way, nearly all of it coming in a marathon game against Kansas City.
The Colts have signed veteran defensive end Arden Key in the first wave of free agency on Monday, but Indianapolis still has a lot of work to do at the position. Paye’s departure leaves a hole in the starting lineup that is unlikely to be filled by Key or 2025 second-round pick JT Tuimoloau, and the Colts need an impact pass rusher to team with Buckner and 2024 first-rounder Laiatu Latu, who led Indianapolis with 8.5 sacks last season.
Paye was supposed to develop into the kind of edge rusher who could keep the Colts out of that market.
Instead, he heads to Las Vegas with a reputation that hasn’t changed much since his draft profile at Michigan, a steady all-around player who doesn’t have the spark to take over a game off the edge.
Joel A. Erickson and Nathan Brown cover the Colts all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Colts Insider newsletter.
