Great article on Q by Greg Doyle in the Indy Star.
https://www.indystar.com/story/spor...s-past-texans-into-afc-south-lead/3986662002/
Doyel: Quenton Nelson's controlled violence helps put Colts in 1st place in AFC South
INDIANAPOLIS – Darius Leonard is trying to leave the locker room Sunday, pretty much the last guy out. He’s handled his interviews, put in his time. It’s more than an hour after the Indianapolis Colts have beaten the Houston Texans 30-23 for first place in the AFC South, and Leonard is going home.
But I have to ask him about Quenton Nelson.
I’m wondering, Darius, did you see what he did to that guy …
“Yes!” Leonard says, and he’s almost shouting, he’s so happy. “Yes sir! I’m so glad we’re teammates, you know? He demolished everything in front of him. Even that touchdown with Zach (Pascal) …”
Now I’m interrupting Darius. Could be, now I’m the one shouting: That’s the play I was asking you about!
“Oh, I saw it,” Leonard says. “He demolished the guy in front of him."
Something shocking, maybe mystical, is happening with these 2019 Indianapolis Colts, and I’m not talking about that whole “first place in the AFC South” thing, though perhaps I should be. Because that’s crazy, right? The Colts lose their franchise quarterback, Andrew Luck, to retirement barely two weeks before the season opened – and they’re leading the division at 4-2? With Jacoby Brissett on pace for a monster year?
Nonsense. But it’s happening, and it doesn’t seem like a fluke. The Colts’ defense is rounding into shape, featuring the aforementioned Leonard – who sealed this game, his return after missing three with a concussion – with an acrobatic interception in the final 30 seconds. After torching the Texans for 326 yards and four touchdowns, Brissett has thrown for 14 TDs and three interceptions in six games, a 101.0 passer rating that is a shade better than Andrew Luck’s career-best 98.7 of 2017. Marlon Mack is a star in the making at tailback. The tight ends are loaded.
And the offensive line is the best in football.
It’s not just Nelson. Truth be told, I feel bad for the other Colts’ starting linemen – left tackle Anthony Castonzo, center Ryan Kelly, right guard Mark Glowinski, right tackle Braden Smith – because they’re so good, and so overshadowed. That’s the shocking, maybe mystical, part of this season: Left guard Quenton Nelson’s transformation into a superstar.
He plays with legendary violence
The guy is trending on Twitter during almost every Colts game, and offensive linemen – guards, especially – don’t trend on Twitter. They’re anonymous, or supposed to be, and Nelson would very much prefer to be left alone. He’s not rude about it, but he’s just not much for talking about himself. And when he does, he mentions how “the tight ends did a great job blocking today, and so did the whole offensive line.”
Yes, but: Quenton Nelson demolished people on Sunday. He also lined up at fullback and went out for a pass, and people were having fun with that afterward – one reporter asked with no success if Nelson wanted to become the Colts’ version of 1985 Bears defensive tackle “Refrigerator” Perry, who lined up at fullback and scored in the Super Bowl – but Nelson’s biggest impact on this game was the one he always has: He bludgeons the other team, punishes them, and does it until he’s trending on Twitter.
On the Zach Pascal touchdown, Nelson lined up at left guard and pulled around the right side, looking for anybody in a white Texans jersey. Unfortunately for inside linebacker Zach Cunningham, he was wearing a white Texans jersey. Nelson ran him over, and while Cunningham is 6-3 and 238 pounds, Nelson is 6-5, 330. This was a bowling ball knocking over the last pin, and Pascal had an alley to score.
Afterward, I ask Pascal if he knows who made the big block on his touchdown. He quietly asks me a question in return – “Which touchdown?” – and I realize: That’s right, Pascal scored twice, vaulting over a Texans defender at the end of an 11-yard scoring reception and then barreling in from 3 yards out on a shovel pass.
The shovel pass, I’m telling him. Did you see what Quenton did?
“Nah, I didn’t see it,” Pascal says, but he’s smiling, because he knows where this is going.
Quenton pulled, I’m telling him. And No. 41 was in the way. And he …
“He probably demolished him!” Pascal says, shouting and cutting me off just like Darius Leonard had done earlier, because these guys love talking about Quenton Nelson. “I know he did! Big Quuuuuuu! Yes sir!”
Pascal is looking for Nelson and finding him as he walks out of the locker room, ice packs on each knee and another on his right wrist, probably from clubbing someone in a white Texans jersey. Perhaps another play when he lined up at left guard and pulled to the right. It was a running play for Jordan Wilkins, second-and-10 from the Houston 13, and Nelson pulled and found poor little Lonnie Johnson Jr. in his way.
Johnson is a safety, a rookie from Kentucky listed at 6-2 and 213 pounds. So Nelson took pity on him and …
Nah! Nelson demolished him. Last I saw of Johnson, he was falling backward. Can’t tell you what happened next, because Johnson was gone. He had disappeared underneath Nelson as Wilkins gained 9 yards, setting up Eric Ebron’s absurd one-handed tightrope touchdown, a catch so spectacular that it overshadowed the sight of Quenton Nelson lining up at fullback and lumbering into the end zone on a pass route.
“It wasn’t designed for me,” Nelson says, which has me blurting something stupid:
So you were the decoy?
Nelson sizes me up. Somewhere, I hear a loud knocking noise and … never mind. Those are my knees.
Nelson keeps looking at me, then breaks into a smile.
“Yeah,” he says.
NFL microphones catch Quenton
Whew. Anyway, what am I worried about? The guy’s not a meathead. He’s a smart guy, Notre Dame graduate and all that, and his football IQ is off the charts, as caught by microphones Sunday when Nelson noticed the Texans’ linebackers shifting over and the safety looking his way.
“Watch the safety coming down!” Nelson was pointing and shouting, caught by microphones and by Brissett, who audibled into a new play before calling timeout. Given a second chance, the Colts dialed up an 11-yard pass to T.Y. Hilton for a first down.
Nelson’s also a bodyguard, a beloved teammate, the guy who followed Brissett into the Texans sideline after Houston safety Jahleel Addae hit Brissett late and low, knocking him out of bounds after an incomplete pass. On his way to pick up Brissett, Nelson brushed ominously past Addae, knocking the Texans safety off-balance. Oops. An accident, no doubt.
In the quarterbacks’ corner of the Colts locker room, 11-year veteran Brian Hoyer is saying Nelson reminds him of former New England Patriots teammate Logan Mankins, a seven-time Pro Bowler.
“There’s a lot of similarities,” Hoyer says. “I mean, they look like grizzly bears. They’re mean, nasty, and Logan was one of the best guards I’ve ever seen. I see a little bit of that in Quenton. I see a guy that big, that nasty, always having your back. When you’re a quarterback and you have a guy like that who’s a bulldog, manhandling people …”
Hoyer is smiling.
“You need one on every team.”
The Colts found theirs with the No. 6 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, way too early to draft a guard. But then, this isn’t your normal guard. Put it this way: Before kickoff Sunday, the Colts introduced their offensive starters one by one. A name is called, and a player emerges from the tunnel. There was this one time the noise was so loud, so deep, so different, I had to look up to see what was going on.
And there he is: Quenton Nelson, lumbering onto the field, the most unlikely superstar in the NFL.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at
www.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.