Doyel: Colts' risky draft may reap rewards. Or not.

Say this for Ryan Grigson: He didn’t play it safe in the 2016 NFL draft. The Colts general manager swung for the fences, going for players with boom-or-bust potential, inviting the possibility that this could be one of the best drafts in Colts history.

Or one of the worst.

Well, one of the worst … after center Ryan Kelly of Alabama. The Colts took Kelly in the first round, 18th overall, and he has zero bust factor. An enormous, agile, brainy center with leadership qualities? Yes, please. For the next decade Ryan Kelly should be the Jeff Saturday to Andrew Luck’s Peyton Manning. Kelly was the easiest first-rounder for Grigson since taking Luck first overall in 2012.

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The next seven players Grigson drafted? That had to be hard. Scary, even. The Colts weren’t acting scared on Saturday, mind you. They met the media and were acting — what’s the word Colts insider Stephen Holder had for it? Giddy. That’s the word. Holder tells me Grigson was acting giddy on Saturday, and Grigson isn’t the giddy type. He was giddy after picking Kelly on Friday also, but that’s out of character for the Colts’ calm, quiet, foreboding giant of a GM.

But he was giddy on Saturday, he and coach Chuck Pagano, which tells you they see the potential for this draft class to go boom.

And it could. This 2016 draft could be an explosion of talent for the Colts, the centerpiece to another long run near the top of the AFC. The Colts took an exceptionally fast safety in Round 2, an exceptionally rangy tackle in Round 3, an exceptionally talented linebacker in Round 4 and an exceptionally experienced tackle in Round 5. For the Colts, this 2016 draft has all kinds of exceptional.

Except …

Except it has all kinds of risk, too.

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Listen, I’m not ripping the Colts’ draft. Hell, I’m impressed by it. Blown away by the amount of risk Grigson and Pagano were willing to take. They didn’t just creep out onto a limb. They’re standing out there and jumping up and down, seeing how far that branch can bend.

Clemson safety T.J. Green, the Colts’ second-rounder, is a converted receiver whose hands are good and whose speed — 4.34 in the 40, fourth-fastest in the entire 2016 NFL Combine — is absurd. Green is nearly as fast as 2015 first-rounder Phillip Dorsett, but at 6-3 and 205 pounds, Green is five inches taller and 20 pounds heavier than Dorsett.

Exceptional.

Except …

Can Green cover receivers? The Colts say he can, and Pagano is a former defensive backs position coach. He’d know. But one of the leading online scouting services, Pro Football Focus, graded the nearly 100 safeties in this draft — and ranked Green dead last in coverage skills.Last. Makes you wonder, is all.

Texas Tech tackle Le’Raven Clark, the Colts’ third-rounder, is another physical freak. He goes 6-5, 315 pounds and has a 30-inch vertical leap. That’s nuts. So is his 36¼-inch arm length, which Grigson was describing by shaking his head and saying: “I don’t know if there’s longer out there.”

Exceptional.

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Except … Grigson also said Clark is a bit of a project, drafted perhaps because the Colts have one of the better offensive line coaches in the NFL in former Dolphins coach Joe Philbin. So after picking a plug-and-play center in the first round, the Colts picked a pair of wait-and-see projects in Rounds 2 and 3.

In the fourth round Grigson picked a defensive tackle from Texas, Hassan Ridgeway, who turned pro after an injury-plagued junior season. Ridgeway is enormous (6-3, 303 pounds) and explosive, but far from a sure thing given his injury history.

And then Grigson got really frisky.

Later in the fourth round he drafted a player from Florida, Antonio Morrison, who was one of the best linebackers in the SEC but has been arrested twice and suffered a knee injury while in college. The Colts had said they wouldn’t waste a pick on a player with character concerns, which means they were lying — or they don’t think Morrison is a character risk. The arrests did happen three years ago, and as Grigson said Saturday, he’d hate to be judged on his actions at age 18.

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Morrison met with reporters on a conference call and showed strength when asked repeatedly about his arrests.

“I’m really going to deflect these questions,” Morrison said. “I’m not really trying to talk about this right now. I’m not trying to bring this type of stuff up right now. I’m mature. I’ve finally matured.”

A tackle from a non-FBS school? That’s whom the Colts took in the fifth round, Joe Haeg of North Dakota State, the same school as No. 2 overall pick Carson Wentz. Haeg was a four-year starter in college, and as Wentz shows, talent is spread all over college football. That said, Haeg has a major jump to make.

So does the Colts’ first seventh-rounder, Trevor Bates, a linebacker from Maine. He’s big (6-1, 245) and fast (4.72 in the 40), but he’s from Maine. The AFC is not the Colonial Athletic Association.

The Colts went with a seemingly safer pick with their second selection of the seventh round, Austin Blythe of Iowa, who plays, um, center. The same position as first-rounder Ryan Kelly.

It’s an odd draft by the Colts, I’m telling you, an exclamation mark in the first round followed by a series of question marks.

Grigson went for it. He didn’t draft like a GM trying to protect his job. He drafted like a GM trying to find a diamond with every pick. He drafted like a GM trying to win a Super Bowl.

Have to admire the guts behind this draft, even as you wonder about the risks.

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