The Indianapolis Colts reshaped their roster on Tuesday, signing tackle Charlie Heck to the 53-man roster, adding guard Joshua Gray to the practice squad and releasing linebacker Germaine Pratt from the practice squad. The three moves changed the team’s immediate depth chart in one day and gave the Colts a fresh look at both the offensive line and the back end of the roster.
For readers tracking Indianapolis Colts Tickets, the timing matters because the roster shift came on the same day the Colts moved through multiple personnel decisions. Heck gives the club a veteran tackle with 67 career games and 29 starts, while Gray arrives after time on the Minnesota Vikings practice squad earlier this season and work with the Carolina Panthers in their 2026 offseason program and training camp.
Heck also brings a wide NFL paper trail. He has spent time with the Miami Dolphins, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, San Francisco 49ers, Arizona Cardinals and Houston Texans, and he was originally selected by Houston in the fourth round of the 2020 NFL Draft. The move is straightforward enough on the surface: a player who has appeared in two postseason contests joins the active roster, and the Colts use a practice squad opening to bring in another lineman with recent league experience.
The harder part is Pratt’s exit. He had been signed to the Colts’ practice squad on October 13, 2026, and his resume was not the profile of a fringe body. Pratt has played in 113 career games with 104 starts, logged 737 tackles, 38.0 tackles for loss and 3.5 sacks, and appeared in seven postseason contests. Even so, the Colts chose to move on from him, which makes Tuesday less about small paperwork and more about how quickly roster spots can change when a team decides it needs a different mix.
The Colts did not stop with those three moves, either. They also acquired a third-round pick in the 2027 NFL Draft and a fifth-round pick in the 2028 NFL Draft in exchange for Quenton Nelson, bringing the team’s total to three future NFL Draft picks on Tuesday. That leaves the roster and the draft board moving at the same time, with Heck and Gray in place for now and Pratt out of the picture after only a brief stay on the practice squad.
