Signing of S Matt Giordano solidifies Indianapolis Colts safety position

Giordano, a fourth-round selection by the Colts in the 2005 NFL Draft from California, has re-signed with the team. The Colts announced this Monday, five days before the 2009 NFL Draft, but it shouldn’t get lost in the pre-draft buzz as an important move.

Quickly, here are Giordano’s numbers:

Giordano, who has started six of 55 career games, played in 16 games this past season, starting one with a career-high 26 tackles and 13 on defense. He has 78 career tackles on defense, including, 52 solo, four passes defensed and three interceptions for 89 return yards, including an 83-yard touchdown return. He also has 34 career special teams tackles. 

Giordano wasn’t re-signed as a starter, and he wasn’t even re-signed with the idea that he’ll be the top backup. Bob Sanders and Antoine Bethea form one of the NFL’s best safety tandems — and certainly the Colts’ best safety tandem of the Bill Polian/Peyton Manning era — and Melvin Bullitt deservedly moved past Giordano into the top backup role last season, if not before.

But here’s the thing about the safety position, and specifically Bullitt and Giordano.

I always thought Bullitt’s ascension into the third safety role was a lot more of a reflection on Bullitt than it was on Giordano. And I always thought that the fact Bullitt was the third safety over Giordano was a reflection that if you went Nos. 1-4, the Colts were maybe in as good a situation at the position as any team in the NFL. The feeling around the Colts in late 2006 and early 2007 was that the only reason Giordano wasn’t closing in on a starting position was that Sanders and Bethea were Pro Bowl-level players. I’ve always been struck by how quickly a players’ status changes in the NFL, particularly backup players. Giordano’s lack of playing time the last two seasons, partly due to Bullitt’s presence, almost certainly hurt him in free agency. Early in 2007, he perhaps could have signed somewhere with at least a chance to compete for a starting role. As it stands, he went untouched in free agency for nearly two months and now he will return to the Colts, which is probably the best move because the Colts know him, know what he can do and know his role. That’s an underrated element for a fifth-year veteran in the salary-cap era.

This won’t be a move that generates a lot of headlines, but it’s the sort of move that can be critical. Veteran depth and quality veteran special teams players are rare in the NFL, and even rarer still in Indianapolis, but Giordano not only will give the Colts a veteran backup at safety, he also has been a leader on and off the field on special teams. With defensive tackle Darrell Reid gone to the Denver Broncos as a free agent, Giordano likely will be one of the leaders — if not THE leader — of that group.

Too often during the salary cap era, veteran players move on to bad situations and are out of the NFL sooner than necessary. The re-signing of Giordano, as well as the re-signing of linebacker Tyjuan Hagler recently, should help those players because they’ll fit into the Colts better than they would have on other teams.

The signings will help the Colts, too, and that’s why they were moves that absolutely should have happened.