Colts Sign DT Jerry Tillery, Add Ex-Notre Dame Hoops Starter Carson Towt
Already bringing in veteran defensive tackle Derrick Nnadi, the Colts are importing another former Chiefs interior D-lineman. Jerry Tillery signed with the team today.
Indianapolis returns starters DeForest Buckner and Grover Stewart, but Nnadi and Tillery — the latter a 53-game starter and a former first-round pick — will be in place to supply depth.
The Colts are Tillery’s fifth NFL team. The former Chargers first-rounder — the No. 28 overall pick in 2019 — has also played for the Raiders and Vikings before a 2025 Chiefs commitment. Kansas City used Tillery mostly as a backup in its Chris Jones-fronted D-tackle corps, giving the 29-year-old defender three starts in 17 appearances. Tillery, though, started 11 games with the Vikings in 2024.
This marks a return to Indiana for Tillery, whose Notre Dame career booked him that first-round draft slot. A Louisiana native, Tillery played for the Fighting Irish from 2015-18 and closed his career with a second-team All-American nod. While Tillery racked up eight sacks during his final season in South Bend, he has not justified a first-round investment. The Colts have given chances to this type of player at this position recently, however, having employed Taven Bryan during the Chris Ballard regime.
Tillery has 14.5 career sacks in seven seasons, topping out at 4.5 with the 2021 Chargers. Pro Football Focus graded the veteran D-tackle outside the top 100 among qualified options during his season in Kansas City and 89th overall during his Minnesota season. Given a longer runway as a starter in Los Angeles (29 starts), the 295-pound defender logged 10 in Las Vegas from 2022-23.
Beyond the first-round investment, Tillery’s most notable NFL transaction came when the Raiders claimed him off waivers in November 2022. When the Bolts cut him, eight teams submitted claims. Then employing former Chargers DC Gus Bradley, the Colts were one of them. Now with Lou Anarumo running the defense, Ballard’s team will circle back. Indy has now added Nnadi, Tillery and Colby Wooden (from the Packers in a trade that sent Zaire Franklin to Green Bay) at DT this month.
On the subject of Notre Dame alums, former Fighting Irish basketball player Carson Towt also joined the team as a UDFA. The Colts announced that signing Tuesday as well. A seven-year college hoops career wrapped for Towt this month, as he closed out a 31-game season with the Fighting Irish. The Colts plan to try Towt at tight end.
Because Towt’s football eligibility expired before last year, per the Indianapolis Star’s Joel Erickson, he can sign with a team before the draft. The 6-foot-7 forward started 31 games for the ACC team, averaging 5.9 points and nine rebounds per game.
The season prior with Northern Arizona, Towt pulled down a Big Sky-leading 12.4 boards per game to go with 13.3 points per contest. Granted, the Lumberjacks play in a lower-level conference, but the Colts have certainly experienced success with this type of investment before. Mo Alie-Cox, who played collegiately at VCU, is going into his 10th Indianapolis season. The veteran tight end re-signed with the team last week.
In other Colts contract news on the defensive line, Arden Key‘s recent agreement — reported as a $20MM max-value pact — is worth $16MM over two years. Fellow edge rusher Micheal Clemons is joining the team on a three-year, $17MM deal; the ex-Jet’s contract carries $5.99MM guaranteed at signing, per OverTheCap. $1MM of Clemons’ $3.87MM 2027 base salary becomes fully guaranteed on Day 5 of the 2027 league year, with Erickson adding the fifth-year D-end is also due $1MM roster bonuses on Day 5 of the 2027 and ’28 league years.
Colts To Add DE Micheal Clemons
Another of the Jets’ Joe Douglas-era defenders is relocating. Rather than reunite with Robert Saleh or Jeff Ulbrich, Micheal Clemons is heading to Indianapolis.
Clemons is signing a three-year, $17.5MM deal with the Colts, NFL insider Jordan Schultz tweets. The deal can max out at $18.5MM. The Colts were in the Trey Hendrickson market, but the Ravens prevailed there. Losing Kwity Paye to the Raiders, the Colts will bring in the former Jets contributor to be part of their edge-rushing corps.
The Colts just checked the Daniel Jones deal off their to-do list, freeing up cap space after a cap-clogging $37.83MM transition tag number was on the payroll. Some of those savings will go toward Clemons, a full-time starter in 2024 but more of a depth piece in his other three New York seasons.
One of the Jets’ many trade candidates at last year’s deadline, Clemons started six games during a disastrous 3-14 Gang Green 2025 season. Mostly playing behind Will McDonald and Jermaine Johnson last season, Clemons totaled just one sack and five QB hits in 16 games. In 2024, the former fourth-round pick posted a career-best 4.5 sacks.
Clemons, 28, has never posted more than eight QB hits in a season. Although the Texas A&M product was not a regular starter last season, his snap share (55%) outpaced his 2024 number (54%). Last season, DC Steve Wilks used Clemons inside more frequently than Saleh and Ulbrich did. The Colts have regularly turned to their DEs (notably Dayo Odeyingbo and Tyquan Lewis) as hybrid players, though that was under Gus Bradley. Lou Anarumo enters his second season as Indianapolis’ DC.
The Jets, who lost Johnson for the year in 2024 to clear a path for Clemons, are rebooting on their D-line. After trading Quinnen Williams at the 2025 deadline, New York dealt Johnson to Tennessee for T’Vondre Sweat. Ex-Bengal Joseph Ossai is now Big Apple-bound, being set to play opposite McDonald while Sweat takes over as the nose tackle in Aaron Glenn‘s 3-4 front. A career-long 4-3 D-end, Clemons will join Laiatu Latu, JT Tuimoloau and free agency addition Arden Key in Indy.
Jets Seeking Day 2 Picks For Jermaine Johnson, Breece Hall; Quinnen Williams Unlikely To Be Dealt
NOVEMBER 2: ESPN’s Rich Cimini echoes Breer’s report and says Quincy Williams is a player who could be on the move before the deadline. He believes Quinnen Williams, Hall, and McDonald are likely to stay put, and he does not rule out the possibility of the Jets adding a player via trade, with safety and offensive lineman representing possible target areas.
OCTOBER 31: In indicating he was unlikely to be traded at the deadline, Jermaine Johnson cited a recent conversation with Jets brass. But it appears the Aaron Glenn-Darren Mougey regime is still listening on the former first-round pick.
Although the Jets are not planning to move Will McDonald, Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer notes they are still open to unloading Johnson — albeit for a price that might spook contending teams. The Jets are believed to want a second-round pick for the 2022 first-rounder, per Breer, on a player signed through 2026.
[RELATED: Glenn Against Trading Hall At Deadline]
This asking price is in the Breece Hall ballpark as well. Despite Hall being in a contract year, Breer adds the Jets are aiming for a Day 2 pick to move on now. No extension has been in the works, after the Jets tabled re-up talks on players not named Sauce Gardner and Garrett Wilson this summer, but a recent report indicated the team may be warming up to the idea of re-signing Hall. It is unsurprising the Jets are setting a Day 2 price, then, as news out of New York has indicated a high price is attached to the four-year starting RB.
It took a second-rounder for the Bears to pry Montez Sweat from the Commanders in 2023; a third-rounder came back (from the 49ers) for Chase Young. Both ex-first-round picks were in walk years at that point. Dante Fowler drew third- and fifth-round picks as a rental in 2018. Johnson’s profile is more on the Fowler level, having one productive season (2023) on his resume.
The Minneapolis-area native has just one season with more than 2.5 sacks; he posted 7.5 with 16 QB hits that year. His work this season — coming off an Achilles tear — leaves much to be desired, sitting at one sack and just two QB hits through five games played. This will make a second-rounder tough to fetch for Gang Green, pointing to either the team reducing the asking price or regrouping to see if Johnson ups his value ahead of the 2026 offseason.
Hall would likely be the RB prize at this deadline, one that has not seen big names — as Alvin Kamara has been dead set against leaving New Orleans — mentioned as trade candidates. The former second-rounder is on pace for his first 1,000-yard season and is averaging 5.0 yards per carry in his platform year. The Jets will need to decide if they are truly interested in re-signing the Iowa State product. Depending on their free agency activity and Hall’s 2026 FA value, the team also will need to weigh the compensatory component when determining if it pulls the trigger on a trade now.
Additionally, Breer points out linebacker Quincy Williams is available to be moved. Ditto D-end Micheal Clemons. A former first-team All-Pro whom the Joe Douglas-Robert Saleh duo was higher on compared to the current regime, Williams observed the Jets more than double his pay rate to re-sign less accomplished LB Jamien Sherwood this offseason.
That decision likely points Williams out of town come 2026, but he may be on the move sooner. His name has come up in previous trade rumors. Clemons qualifies as a lower-profile option, but the rotational rusher did tally 4.5 sacks in 2024. The contract-year rusher does not have any this season.
Jets’ Byron Cowart, Jay Tufele Competing For Starting DT Job
When the Jets signed Derrick Nnadi this offseason, it appeared as if he, along with fellow additions Byron Cowart and Jay Tufele, would serve as depth options along the defensive line. However, New York did not select an interior DL in the draft, leaving those three veterans – all of whom signed modest one-year deals – as the leading candidates to replace Javon Kinlaw as the starting defensive tackle alongside three-time Pro Bowler Quinnen Williams.
Per Brian Costello of the New York Post, Cowart and Tufele appear to be the frontrunners to fill the void left by Kinlaw’s departure. In Costello’s estimation, the defensive line got weaker this offseason, and it is probably safe to assume that neither player, nor Nnadi, will replicate Kinlaw’s performance (which he parlayed into a three-year, $45MM deal with the Commanders in free agency).
Cowart, 29, entered the league as a fifth-round choice of the Patriots in 2019 and started a career-high 14 contests in 2020. He was not particularly effective against either the run or pass, and he spent the entirety of the following campaign on the PUP list. The Colts claimed him off waivers in July 2022, and though he appeared in all 17 games that year in a rotational role, his performance was generally underwhelming.
As such, Indianapolis elected not to re-sign him. He hooked on with the Chiefs in March 2023 but was released shortly thereafter, and he subsequently agreed to a one-year pact with the Texans. He did not crack Houston’s 53-man roster at the end of the summer, so he joined the Dolphins on a taxi squad deal. While the Maryland product did not log any regular season work in 2023, he finally made his way back to a starting lineup last year, when he appeared in 15 games (seven starts) for the Bears.
His 335 Chicago snaps yielded a career-best 2.5 sacks, but he received mediocre grades across the board from Pro Football Focus. The advanced metrics site assigned him an overall grade of 58.9, which made him the 56th-best interior defender out of 118 qualified players.
Still, PFF thought more highly of Cowart’s 2024 offering than that of Tufele, who earned a poor 44.4 overall grade that would have placed him near the bottom of the league’s interior D-linemen if he had enough snaps to qualify. Tufele, a former fourth-round pick of the Jaguars, did appear in 13 games for the Bengals last season and started three of them, both of which represented career-high marks (it should be noted, though, that Cincinnati’s defense was one of the worst in the league in 2024). Tufele’s work yielded 15 total tackles and a half-sack.
Getting Williams to return to form after something of a down season will be near the top of the agenda for new head coach Aaron Glenn and new defensive coordinator Steve Wilks. If the duo can coax solid play out of whatever combination of linemen who serve as Williams’ running mates, that will go a long way towards helping the defense as a whole live up to its considerable potential.
As Costello observes, another potential trouble spot is the Jets’ depth along the edges of its defense. Defensive end Jermaine Johnson, whose 2024 season was cut short due to an Achilles tendon tear, has still not been cleared to practice, and fellow DEs Will McDonald and Micheal Clemons have already missed OTA time. Given New York’s minimal investments in the defensive front in free agency and the draft, it is fair to wonder if the club has left itself a bit thin in the pass rush department.
Jets Notes: WRs, Hall, Brown, Whitehead
The Jets have been mentioned as a potential suitor for DeAndre Hopkins, but head coach Robert Saleh made it clear today that he’s perfectly content rolling into the 2023 campaign with his current grouping of receivers.
“No, we love our current group,” Saleh told reporters (via Yahoo’s Jori Epstein on Twitter). “I know there was some stuff with Odell [Beckham], but other than that, we love our group.”
Saleh is referring to the team’s pursuit of OBJ, which ultimately resulted in the WR landing in Baltimore. Unlike that sweepstakes, the Jets haven’t been definitively connected to Hopkins; it’s merely been speculation that the receiver could team up with Aaron Rodgers in New York.
While the veteran QB would surely welcome in as many weapons as he can get, the Jets don’t have a major need for another receiver. The team has been busy this offseason adding Allen Lazard, Mecole Hardman, and Randall Cobb to a grouping that already features Offensive Rookie of the Year Garrett Wilson, Corey Davis, and Denzel Mims.
More notes out of New York…
- Speaking of offensive weapons, Saleh told reporters that he’s “very optimistic” that running back Breece Hall will be on the field for Week 1. “I’m very optimistic on that one,” the coach said (via NFL.com’s Kevin Patra). “I don’t want to jinx it. (Knocks on wood) I mean, the kid’s already hitting over 22 (mph) on the GPS, so he looks frickin’ good.” The 2021 second-round pick was averaging more than 97 yards per game last season before suffering a torn ACL. Saleh noted that the running back is already hitting 22 miles per hour on the GPS, which is faster than his top speed from last season.
- Offensive tackle Duane Brown underwent offseason rotator cuff surgery after injuring his shoulder last season. Entering his age-38 season, the veteran easily could have hung up his cleats, but he told reporters that he decided to keep playing in 2023 because he wants to win (per ESPN’s Rich Cimini on Twitter). Brown also admitted that he’s unsure if he’ll be ready to go for the start of training camp, noting that it will be up to the team’s doctors.
- The Jets depth at edge could mean more inside opportunities for John Franklin-Myers and Micheal Clemons, according to defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich (via Brian Costello of the New York Post on Twitter). JFM ranked as Pro Football Focus’ No. 18 edge defender (among 119 qualifying players) following a 2021 campaign that saw him finish with five sacks. Clemons was 23rd on that same list, with the 2022 fourth-round pick finishing with 2.5 sacks in 16 games.
- Safety Jordan Whitehead restructured his contract today, opening $5.3MM in cap space, per Cimini (on Twitter). Since the team converted Whitehead’s non-guaranteed base salary into a signing bonus, the player’s salary is now guaranteed for the 2023 season (per Jason Fitzgerald of OverTheCap.com on Twitter).
NFL Draft Pick Signings: 6/23/22
Here is the latest mid- or late-round pick to sign his rookie deal:
New York Jets
- DE Micheal Clemons (fourth round, Texas A&M)
Clemons played four years for the Aggies after spending a year in JUCO at Cisco College. He saved his best season for last totaling 7.0 sacks, 11.0 tackles for loss, a forced fumble, and two passes defensed during his final year in College Station. Clemons joins rookie Jermaine Johnson II in competition with Carl Lawson, John Franklin-Myers, Vinny Curry, Jabari Zuniga, Bryce Huff, and Jacob Martin for playing time at defensive end.
With the singing, the Jets now have two unsigned draft picks: second-round Iowa State running back Breece Hall and fourth-round Louisiana offensive lineman Max Mitchell.