Colts’ Tenacious Receivers Show that Successful Blocking is a Total Team Effort

The Indianapolis Colts walloped the Las Vegas Raiders 44-27 on Sunday afternoon, as the boys in Horseshoe blue controlled both sides of the line of scrimmage in quite convincing fashion.

Offensively, Colts quarterback Philip Rivers threw for nearly 250 passing yards and 2 touchdowns, while the Indianapolis backfield (predominantly Jonathan Taylor) rushed for 211 total rushing yards on 28 carries (resulting in a robust 7.54 ypc. avg.) and for 2 rushing touchdowns.

While the Colts offensive line clearly manhandled the Raiders’ defensive front at the point of attack (which will be a major talking point throughout the week—and rightfully so), let’s not overlook some of the Colts’ tenacious wide receivers and tight ends blocking in the process and ‘getting physical with it’ (Big Q-y Style).

It was a total team effort for Indianapolis, and these clips are but a limited sample size of it:

None of the Colts receivers have unworldly numbers this year, but each player continues to make contributions felt beyond the basic box score.

Both wideouts Zach Pascal and Michael Pittman Jr. are two of the best perimeter blockers the Colts franchise has ever had in recent memory—while Jack ‘Of-all-trades’ Doyle continues to show his rock solid versatility as an H-back/tight end when called upon, and his freakishly large tight end counterpart, Mo Alie-Cox, at 6’5”, 267 pounds, sometimes moves defenders in space.

Even the Colts’ 5’10”, 183 pound ‘when soak-and-wet’ wideout T.Y. Hilton was showcasing his feistiness, toughness, and getting in on the physical blocking action on Sunday.

Really good teams do a lot of the little things very well, and while the Colts’ receivers impact blocks didn’t regularly show up on Sunday’s stat sheet, they certainly contributed to a collectively dominant effort by the Colts offense.

It takes selflessness.

It takes sacrifice.

It takes an attention to detail.

It takes a total commitment to the team.

This Colts offense may not have an individual Peyton Manning or Marvin Harrison NFL caliber superstar helping to headline a prolific offense anymore, but the hope is that the sum of the offense’s individual parts can still be pretty productive as a whole—and that starts with doing a lot of the little things . . . and doing them quite well.