Colts’ Nelson will violently protect Luck
Rookie lineman plays all out until whistle stops
WESTFIELD, Ind. – They said he was big, and he is. Colts guard Quenton Nelson is listed at 6-5, 330 pounds, and those numbers don’t completely describe the cartoonish size he brings to an NFL locker room, where everyone is big but Nelson is somehow … bigger.
“Broadest back I’ve ever seen in my life,” Indianapolis quarterback Andrew Luck says.
They said he was nasty, and he is. Nelson, the first-round pick out of Notre Dame, spotted Colts coach Frank Reich shortly before the first full-pad practice of camp last week and was bugging him to call for running plays, specifically for plays that would let Nelson put his hands on someone and drive them underground. “Dirt-dogging” is what defensive tackle Grover Stewart told me Nelson wants to do to opposing linemen, and sure enough, Nelson was involved in the first flare-up of camp when 6-2, 307-pound defensive tackle Rakeem Nunez-Roches objected to his methodology.
“Nasty mean streak,” offensive coordinator Nick Sirianni says.
One week into training camp at Grand Park, Quenton Nelson is the storm we were told was coming when the Colts did something weird and chose an offensive guard with the sixth overall pick of the 2018 draft. Guards don’t normally go that early, but Nelson isn’t normal. In his last two seasons at Notre Dame, Nelson allowed zero sacks.
And pass protection isn’t his strong suit, if you can believe that. He’ll get better with time and technique, but Nelson’s strength at the moment isn’t standing up and backpedaling and buying time for the quarterback to throw. No, his strength is exploding into his defender, a box of dynamite delivered to the poor guy’s chest, and locking him up until the whistle blows and someone like Nunez-Roches is tired of being mauled and starts lashing out.
On Tuesday, I saw this happen: Nelson is blocking 6-5, 270-pound Denico Autry, a fifth-year veteran who looks like the Colts’ best defensive lineman, and Autry is tired of Nelson’s hands being on him after a pass by Luck, so he grabs them and throws them away. But Nelson puts his hands back on Autry, because the whistle hasn’t blown. And Nelson plays through the whistle. That’s what his dad taught him in Pop Warner, when Quenton Nelson — who came into this world as a 10-pound, 10-ounce bruising baby boy — had to drop 20 pounds each summer to play on his old- er brother’s youth team.
He hasn’t played an NFL game yet, so let’s not go crazy with our praise, but … Nah, that’s no fun. Let’s go nuts. Let’s listen to Stewart, the second-year pro who at 6-4, 330 pounds is the biggest player on the Colts defense.
“He’s going to be a great player,” Stewart says of Nelson.
At one point during 11-on-11 drills Tuesday, it fell to Nelson to slide over and handle the bull rush of rookie Tyquan Lewis, a 6-3, 269-pound defensive lineman out of Ohio State. Lewis had physics on his side — he had momentum and energy and force — but Nelson majored in business, not in physics, and the buck stopped right there. It looked as if Lewis had run into a brick wall, which I suppose he had.
You know that whole unsolvable paradox about an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object? When Nelson is the immovable object, consider that paradox solved.
“At guard,” left tackle Anthony Cas- tonzo says, “you want one of those people that if he’s walking down the street and someone comes and runs at him full speed, that person is going to get knocked out even though he didn’t know it was coming. (Nelson) has that ability that when people run into him, they move and he doesn’t.”
It’s strength, for one thing, and at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis before the draft Nelson bench-pressed 35 reps of 225 pounds. But it’s also an attitude of confidence and nastiness, one Nelson was more willing to share before the draft, when he was trying to sell himself, than he is now, as he’s more interested in fitting in. Nelson’s sound bites have been devoid of meat since training camp began, but at the combine in March he said, “I should be in the top-five (draft) conversation,” and “I also help the offense establish the run through my nastiness.” And, “I want to dominate all my opponents. I want to take their will away to play the game.”
These days Nelson talks about technique and footwork and being a good teammate and making Castonzo and center Ryan Kelly proud, but don’t be fooled. He didn’t go soft on anyone. In the hour of 11-on-11 drills I saw, Nelson was the first offensive lineman sprinting down the field after Luck had completed a pass. I asked him why.
“When a wide receiver catches the ball and he gets tackled,” Nelson said, “I want to be the first guy to help him up and let him know: ‘Great job, I’ve got your back, let’s keep moving the ball.’ ”
That’s not the only reason he’s running downfield. On one screen play, Nelson was running downfield and the whistle hadn’t blown and safety T.J. Green was in the vicinity, so Nelson hit him. Green didn’t like it, but he’ll learn to expect it and avoid it. All the Colts will learn, and someday the rest of the NFL:
A storm’s coming, and it is every bit as violent as we were led to believe.