The Big Q....
 

Stats from Coltfreaks:

I love watching his play on the field; he just wants to punish folks.

Some say that #6 was too high for an OG.

Without having taken Mike McGlinchey (#8), Derwin James (#17) or Leighton Vander Esch (#19), I am hard pressed to look at any of the next 15 picks or so and find one that performed at anywhere near the same level as Nelson did in 2018. For who was available with our pick (i.e. Not Chubb), we found the most impactful dude.

6 hits total for Q in 639 pass attempts (0.939%) or just under once in every 100 pass attempts by Luck.

Amazing.

Keep the faith, Colts fans. The best is yet to come.

Walk Worthy,

The encouraging thing is that Nelson improved as the season progressed. Meaning that he has not hit his ceiling yet.

BTW, I prefer "Earl Grey" to "The Big Q", but either will do.

Chubb is the only 1st round pick I would consider to be on the same level of value, now that the full season is over. 12 sacks, 60 tackles (41 solo), 2 forced fumbles and a pass defended. He had a great year and lived up to the hype.

And seeing how the other OL stepped up, I think Luck's protection would've been improved significantly with a lesser guard taken later.

But overall if I could change it I wouldn't. Having Nelson on the field has proven incredibly valuable. Nelson and Kelly together on the field is irreplaceable.

And while he's definitely second fiddle Braden Smith has done very well at RT. I don't know if he'll be there long-term or if he'll move to guard at some point but he's given us 1st round rookie OL production as a 2nd round pick. No complaints with either selection. I would put competent backup center/guard as the top OL need, the OL is largely fixed.

The line has played awesome this year and if they dominates for many years to come then it was worth it to me.

With 9 picks and $100m in cap space I can't wait for the future!

I think I feel the same way. I was in favor of drafting Chubb, adamantly so. I didn’t want to spend a 6 on a guard. But I am happy to see the line is much improved. Nelson has provided a clean pocket for Luck to step up in, and also cleared big holes for the backs. But this has been a group effort. Kelly’s improved play, putting Smith on the outside, and the return of Castonzo solidified it IMO. Combined with scheme, it works much better and really we only go as far as Luck stays upright.

Also, Chubb plays opposite Von Miller. I wonder how much that helps.

I don't know if you can extract Nelson from the equation and see the same results from the rest of the line. His ability and intensity raised the bar for their performance as a group.

Agree. It would've been improved, but not to the same degree at all. Our OL went from bottom 5-7 to top 5. If we'd gotten Chubb and just Smith, or maybe Smith and another guard prospect, the improvement might've been to somewhere in the middle of the pack. So while our pass rush would've likely been better, I'm not sure it would've been better enough to offset the lesser OL improvement.

And it doesn't matter because time travel isn't real. I'm glad we have Nelson.

also, if we stayed put and drafted chubb we probably would have used our single 2nd rd pick on OL and thus not gotten leonard.

I like having nelson, leonard, and smith combined (and another 2nd this coming draft)

Agee. And he was one of the players that spoke at the players only meeting. Read an article somewhere. Where the online is feeding off of his demeanor. It show

He must have had 6-7 pancakes in the Texan game. It has been a pleasure to watch him rub his nuts across opposing players face masks!!!