JAFF
07-26-2022, 07:51 PM
https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/columnists/gregg-doyel/2022/07/26/colts-meet-shaquille-leonard-kwity-paye-cant-see-its-colts-camp/65376284007/
Kwity Paye, nearly blind in one eye???
Indianapolis Colts defensive end Kwity Paye (51) is pumped up after a defensive play, Sunday, Nov. 28, 2021, during a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
Ryan Kelly’s mustache, stylish though it may be at this moment, will serve as a reminder in 10 years of the crazy things we do when we’re younger, things you’d think a friend or family member would’ve loved us enough to say: No. Just, no.
Hey, I wore bell bottoms back in the day. I rocked a bitchin’ goatee. Hanging onto my cargo shorts, in case they come back in style.
Kwity Paye made a new fashion statement on Tuesday: a pair of large black glasses. First, glasses are always cool. Second, glasses are especially cool when they could turn a decent player into a great one.
ADVERTISING
Short personal story, because I’ve not told one in several paragraphs: I swapped out my old, dirty glasses for contact lenses before my junior year of high school. Suddenly I could see the baseball. I went from batting ninth as a sophomore to leading off as a junior. It’s possible I made all-state that year, and the next. That’s not for me to say. But you could look it up here.
Anyway.
Turns out, Paye’s vision in his left eye is terrible. How bad? He wouldn’t say, when I asked him for specifics. Ballard, when I asked him about Paye’s “vision issue,” said Paye would be fine, and backed that up with a story about a player he coached in the mid-1990s at Texas A&M Kingsbury, Jermane Mayberry, who went onto play 11 years in the NFL.
“He was blind in one eye,” Ballard said.
“It’s something he’s played with his whole career,” Ballard said of Paye. “It’s something Kwity will work around, and he’ll play with it.”
Somehow, Paye made it through Michigan without anyone knowing about the faltering vision in his left eye. Somehow, the battery of tests NFL teams performed on Paye at the 2021 Scouting Combine didn’t reveal it. It took a Colts assistant coach, after studying film from 2021, asking Paye why he was quicker off the snap when he lined up on the left side. Better put: Why was he so slow on the right side?
Paye told him the truth, the same as he told reporters on Tuesday:
“Last year,” he said, “I couldn’t see.”
Now he can. He’ll play in contact lenses this season, which could unlock the pass-rushing potential the Colts saw in Paye when they chose him 21st in the 2021 NFL Draft. Maybe he’ll make all-state, er, All-Pro. Or perhaps the Pro Bowl.
Killing me smalls, just killing me
Kwity Paye, nearly blind in one eye???
Indianapolis Colts defensive end Kwity Paye (51) is pumped up after a defensive play, Sunday, Nov. 28, 2021, during a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
Ryan Kelly’s mustache, stylish though it may be at this moment, will serve as a reminder in 10 years of the crazy things we do when we’re younger, things you’d think a friend or family member would’ve loved us enough to say: No. Just, no.
Hey, I wore bell bottoms back in the day. I rocked a bitchin’ goatee. Hanging onto my cargo shorts, in case they come back in style.
Kwity Paye made a new fashion statement on Tuesday: a pair of large black glasses. First, glasses are always cool. Second, glasses are especially cool when they could turn a decent player into a great one.
ADVERTISING
Short personal story, because I’ve not told one in several paragraphs: I swapped out my old, dirty glasses for contact lenses before my junior year of high school. Suddenly I could see the baseball. I went from batting ninth as a sophomore to leading off as a junior. It’s possible I made all-state that year, and the next. That’s not for me to say. But you could look it up here.
Anyway.
Turns out, Paye’s vision in his left eye is terrible. How bad? He wouldn’t say, when I asked him for specifics. Ballard, when I asked him about Paye’s “vision issue,” said Paye would be fine, and backed that up with a story about a player he coached in the mid-1990s at Texas A&M Kingsbury, Jermane Mayberry, who went onto play 11 years in the NFL.
“He was blind in one eye,” Ballard said.
“It’s something he’s played with his whole career,” Ballard said of Paye. “It’s something Kwity will work around, and he’ll play with it.”
Somehow, Paye made it through Michigan without anyone knowing about the faltering vision in his left eye. Somehow, the battery of tests NFL teams performed on Paye at the 2021 Scouting Combine didn’t reveal it. It took a Colts assistant coach, after studying film from 2021, asking Paye why he was quicker off the snap when he lined up on the left side. Better put: Why was he so slow on the right side?
Paye told him the truth, the same as he told reporters on Tuesday:
“Last year,” he said, “I couldn’t see.”
Now he can. He’ll play in contact lenses this season, which could unlock the pass-rushing potential the Colts saw in Paye when they chose him 21st in the 2021 NFL Draft. Maybe he’ll make all-state, er, All-Pro. Or perhaps the Pro Bowl.
Killing me smalls, just killing me