Indystar 9/25

[JAFF]

I don’t like to think too much': Matt Gay shows why Colts paid him like Justin Tucker

BALTIMORE — Matt Gay can’t tell you much about the kicks he made Sunday, one of the greatest days any kicker has put together in the history of the NFL.

Gay doesn’t have any insight into the snap, the hold. Can’t remember if he heard the crowd, if he felt the pressure of the situation.

If he knows the distances, if he realizes he’s the first kicker in NFL history to make four field goals from 50 yards or more in a single game, it’s only because he’s been given a game ball, because his teammates are chanting his name on his way to the interview room, because people keep telling him.


Indianapolis Colts place kicker Matt Gay (7) kicks a field goal during third quarter action on Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023, at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.
Gay’s mind was blacked out, gone to a place of pure kicking zen, as he punched one through from 31 yards early, from 53 and 54 in the second half, from 53 to send the game into overtime and then from 53 again to hand the Colts an unlikely 22-19 upset over the Ravens on a day when the Indianapolis offense struggled to string drives together.


“In that blackout mode, you just jog on, kick it and jog off,” Gay said. “That’s the mindset I like to have. I don’t like to think too much about what’s going on, think too much about anything. Thoughts can come in and get you off, as opposed to just being in the moment, being unconscious.”

The Colts haven’t had a kicker like Gay in half a decade, not since age caught up with Adam Vinatieri. For years, Indianapolis kept making mistakes at the position: first by holding on to Vinatieri too long, then by handing the job to Rodrigo Blankenship, then sticking with Blankenship through injury, his inability to kick from long range and a penchant for missing when the game was sitting on his foot.


Indianapolis finally made a move to atone for its kicking sins this offseason.

The Colts handed out a four-year, $22.5 million deal, the second-biggest contract for any kicker in the NFL, to steal Gay away from the Los Angeles Rams, a play that echoed the franchise’s big move to sign Vinatieri more than a decade ago.


“People underestimate the power of the kicking game,” Indianapolis linebacker Zaire Franklin said.

Not in Baltimore.

When Gay emerged from the locker room to warm up before Sunday’s game, he trotted out to the Indianapolis half of the field to greet Ravens kicker Justin Tucker, the highest-paid kicker in the NFL — Tucker averages $6 million per year, a tick higher than Gay’s $5.5 million average — and a player the rest of the league reveres.


“I mean, he’s arguably the greatest of all time,” Gay said.

Kickers often warm up before the rest of their teammates put on their uniforms, and Gay always makes it a point to talk to his opposite on the other team, to ask him how he’s doing, how he’s hitting the ball.


Except for Tucker.

That conversation was different.

“Telling him I respect him, nothing but respect for him and his game and what he’s done,” Gay said. “He was kind enough to congratulate me on the deal here and coming to Indy.”

But it’s still Tucker’s field, and Tucker always warms up in the east end zone at M&T Bank Stadium, even though he was surrounded by Colts.

Gay took the hint and headed into enemy territory to get his pregame routine going.

“He’s got his routine,” Gay said. “I didn’t want to bother him. I wanted to make sure we had our space to work out and do our thing.”


Tropical Storm Ophelia rolled through the Baltimore area Saturday, and Gay had spent the week worrying about the conditions, the rain and wind that can be devastating to kickers.

There was nothing to worry about. The Ravens kept the field tarped until two hours before game time, the rain mostly stayed away after it came off the field and Gay found himself on a good kicking surface, little wind and little wetness.

And the moment the game began, Gay stopped thinking about Tucker.

Even when the two kickers began to battle, Tucker answering Gay’s 54-yarder to take the lead with a 50-yarder of his own to take it back.

Even when Tucker blinked first by falling short on a potential game-winner from 61 yards, a kick that would have seemed superhuman for any other kicker but seemed like almost a given, considering how many times Tucker has hit kicks like it in the past.

Tucker’s miss sent the game into overtime.

Gay trotted out onto the field. There is a little time between the end of regulation and the start of overtime, a dead period on the field, and Gay spent it sending another kick through the uprights.

The Colts kicker couldn’t say why he did it after the game. Gay hasn’t kicked in a lot of overtime periods in his career, and he wasn’t thinking about the pressure of the moment.

There is no pressure in blackout mode.

Gay simply wanted to stay in that head space.

“I try to be in it as much as I possibly can,” Gay said. “There are certain streaks, certain things you go on when you look back, you’re like, ‘I was in that mode, for sure.’ I try to be in that mode as frequently as possible. I try to stay in that mode in practice, in games.”

When he trotted out for the game-winner, Gay couldn’t feel the pressure.

Couldn’t feel anything, if he’s being honest.

“For me, it’s like, I couldn’t tell you what happened,” Gay said. “I don’t remember the snap, the hold. The snap goes, then I go, I’m looking up and I see the ball. For me, that’s a good sign when I’m not thinking about anything, I’m just back there kicking. It means I’m fluid, I’m just going, reacting.”

Even after the kick went through, handing the Colts a win few predicted them to get.

His holder, Colts punter Rigoberto Sanchez, erupted in celebration, and Gay was still locked into the moment, even as his teammates surrounded him, erupting in joy.

“The way he kept it cool was amazing. Being a part of it was even better,” Sanchez said. “He’s a complete beast.”

The kind of beast the Colts haven’t had since Vinatieri.

The kind of beast worth paying for.

Crash Davis: “Dont think meat, it only hurts the ball club”

[JAFF]

10 thoughts on Matt Gay, Gardner Minshew and the Colts' overtime win over the Ravens

10 thoughts on Matt Gay, Gardner Minshew and the Colts' overtime win over the Ravens
Nate Atkins
Indianapolis Star


BALTIMORE - Ten thoughts on the Colts' 22-19 overtime win to the Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium:

1. Matt Gay is a hero. At least for one day. In a stadium owned by the greatest kicker in NFL history, it was suddenly not Justin Tucker nailing the 50-yard plus field goal through the wind and rain to win the game. It was Gay, nailing it from 53 yards in overtime for his fourth field goal of at least 50 yards on the day -- the most in a game in NFL history.

The Colts needed someone to lift them out of a messy road game played with a backup quarterback against a star like Lamar Jackson. Anthony Richardson wasn't here. Jonathan Taylor wasn't here. Zack Moss was banged up. But Gay stepped up and delivered a monster performance in a way a Colts kicker hasn't in several years.


2. Don't look now, but a team with a rookie head coach, a rookie quarterback, one of the youngest rosters in the NFL and a missing superstar back is alone in first place of the AFC South. That says a lot of things, primarily that through three games, the Colts look like they might have star in Shane Steichen.


3. Once the game status reports came out on Friday, you had a feeling this was going to be a low-scoring and discombobulated game. The Colts were without Richardson and Ryan Kelly, falling down to a third-string center and immobile quarterback on the road. The Ravens had a host of players out, notably including two offensive linemen, which was going to play into the Colts' strengths up front. Add in the rain and wind, and we knew we weren't going to see a shootout.


So give the Colts credit for doing exactly what they had to in order to win a road game over an elite quarterback and a Super Bowl contender: They protected the ball with zero turnovers, gave up zero big plays on defense, forced a couple of fumbles, made long kick after long kick and gutted out a workmanlike day on the ground.

4. The Colts offensive line held up for most of the day in its 1-on-1 matchups, which tracks with how that group has played through the first three games. The issues came, predictably, in handling the Ravens' bevy of blitzes on third downs as the crowd ramped up the noise and third-string center Wesley French tried to handle all the protections. Some of that fell on Gardner Minshew, though, as his struggles throwing on the move came out whenever he drifted back.

Dropping back eventually caught up to the line in the fourth quarter and overtime, when the Ravens were teeing off. It goes to show how valuable that running game is to keeping these guys fresh for the pass snaps.

5. This is who Minshew is: He can get a team pretty organized stepping in as a backup, even in adverse circumstances. He can play an efficient game within a script, throwing early, on time and on target to limit negative plays while allowing some skill players to do their thing.

But when the game falls on him, he's not likely to match a franchise quarterback on the other side. That came to a head in the fourth quarter, when that efficiency kept dropping off and the Ravens got him constantly on the move. Once they pinned the ball down at the 1-yard line on Isaiah McKenzie's questionable decision not to field a punt in the final few minutes, Minshew was trapped. He avoided one safety, but eventually the room squeezed down against the pass rush, and he stepped out of the end zone for a safety.


6. Give Minshew some credit for the final drive of the fourth quarter, bouncing back from the safety by leading a 44-yard drive with efficient and sharp decisions, including when the Ravens sent their trademark blitz with Hamilton and he lofted it over his head on a throw that let Josh Downs get out of bounds in Baltimore territory. Minshew also threw a dime down the left sideline to Alec Pierce that Brandon Stephens broke up at the final moment to force a field goal.

He isn't going to lose the game, which ended up mattering in overtime of a game this tight. This won't work week-in and week-out. But the Colts hope this is the one time they needed it, and a heroic kicking effort, a stable run game, a great defense and a safe enough backup quarterback prevailed.

7. What an incredible catch from Michael Pittman Jr. in overtime. It was 2nd-and-10, with the Ravens pass rush bearing down on Minshew, with passing yards so hard to come by and the run suffocated, and Minshew heaved a late pass down the left side and Pittman Jr. went over the defender through contact to pull down a 34-yard catch as his helmet came off.


Pittman Jr. has some other areas to fine-tune to become a No. 1 wide receiver, but he’s displayed some incredible jump-ball abilities, and that’s just not something you can go to the draft and find very easily. Something to consider as they develop Richardson and search to find him security blankets he can trust in the most chaotic of moments.


8. The Colts decided to rip the band-aid off at outside cornerback and start second-round Warren Central High School rookie JuJu Brents while making Darrell Baker Jr. inactive. That was a 180-degree reversal of the first two weeks, when Brents was a healthy scratch and the Colts didn't form even a rotation with the outside spots.

It was just time. Brents has gotten in eight of nine practices the past three weeks without any injuries. Baker Jr. had a rough day in Houston last week, when C.J. Stroud threw for 384 yards, mostly by peppering players in space and letting them run as Baker played with too much cushion. Dallis Flowers has been fine this season, but the lane is open for someone to become the Colts' top outside cornerback.

Brents' skill set is a great fit for Gus Bradley's style of defense, with his 6-foot-3 height, 36-inch arms and physical brand. And he flashed in a messy game like this by chasing down Kenyan Drake from behind, punching the ball out and recovering it along the sideline. He brought the wood on some run stops. He broke up a pass to Mark Andrews across the middle, potentially getting away with early contact, but playing in the gray is going to be his game.

Life as a rookie outside cornerback isn't always easy. He made it look easy Sunday by playing with confidence, physicality and instincts. He will raise this defense's ceiling if he can keep playing like this.

9. The Colts have one of the better linebacking corps in the league, and that's still with Shaquille Leonard trying to work back to his old form. E.J. Speed is flashing on run stops and blitzes. Zaire Franklin is one of the most sure tacklers in the game who can also lay the wood.

But it remains confounding how teams can effectively get away with quarterback draws out of empty sets against them. When Jalen Hurts did it to win a game last year, Bradley took the heat, saying the issue was the call. But it happened again in this one, with Lamar Jackson facing a 3rd-and-1 from the Colts 10, and they just made it too easy for him to get into the end zone.

10. This was a heroic performance from Zack Moss, whose downhill and forward-falling style fits a messy game like this. One week after playing every running back snap against the Texans, Moss was headed for a similar day until he got up gimpy on a third-quarter run. But he gutted it out to finish with 30 carries for 122 yards, including a first-down run in overtime that gave Gay the chance at the winning field goal.

He's looking like a more-than-adequate fill-in for Jonathan Taylor, at least for now. The issue is the depth behind him, as the No. 2 back in this game was Trey Sermon, whom the Colts signed off the street last week. The other issue is the lack of explosiveness in the offense, which is as much about the entire personnel set than it is about him.

Moss is looking like a sneaky add-on to the trade Nyheim Hines requested a year ago. Moss's production is coming at a great time, for the Colts without Taylor and for himself in a contract year.

[JAFF]

Colts RB Zack Moss guts out 30 carries to chase a dream

BALTIMORE -- Zack Moss was facedown at M&T Bank Stadium, staring into wet grass covered in darkness.

The Colts running back had a pair of Ravens tacklers crushing the two halves of his back on his 16th carry of the game. It was a moment of fate that comes to NFL running backs, when the toll of a workload meets the physics of the world.

But Moss did what he's been wired to do since August: He picked himself back off the grass and hobbled away.

Then he found a way to come back.


With a bruised leg, Moss limped through the wet grass of a low-scoring slugfest because his team needed every last one of his 30 carries, every blade of grass in his 122 yards, including a 24-yarder for the longest Colts run of the season and a first-down carry in overtime to set up Matt Gay's 53-yard game-winning field goal in a 22-19 victory over the Ravens.


"He just runs so hard," left guard Quenton Nelson said. "He finds the crease. Sometimes there isn't something and he makes something out of it."


This is a man who wanted it, who feared not long ago that a golden opportunity had been taken away.

In early August, Moss took a handoff in training camp, met a linebacker and felt his forearm snap. He didn't even get over to the sideline before he grabbed his Colts helmet with two hands and spiked it into the grass.


This was the opportunity he prayed for after a trade from Buffalo in the middle of last season, when the Bills moved on from the third-round pick in exchange for Nyheim Hines. It was one he felt he'd earned by averaging 4.8 yards per carry in the final eight games last year, one that ratcheted up when Jonathan Taylor went on the Physically Unable to Perform List and requested a trade and the Colts needed someone to step up as the bell-cow for a Shane Steichen offense breaking in a rookie quarterback.

He wasn't the only one.

"It was no surprise to me," said strong safety Julian Blackmon, who played with Moss at Utah. "He's bruising, man. ... He's patient. He's one of those guys who will wear you down over time."

Said Michael Pittman Jr., who faced him four times in college: "He is just a ground-and-pound, tough guy. He's gong to get those tough yards."

This season was also an opportunity Moss owed to his wife, Jesse; and the baby boy named Zavien they welcomed into the world in June. And here was a man in a contract year with an arm that didn't work, playing a position that's fighting to survive in this league.

But Moss said that month of forced inactivity brought him closer to his faith, which is constantly instilling the virtues of patience, of what is learned from the things temporarily lost.

"Everything happens for a reason," he said. "... God is allowing me to do things I couldn't have imagined."

He watched on as Colts running backs ran 16 times for 25 yards with two lost fumbles in a 31-21 Week 1 loss to the Jaguars. He tried to go that week, but the forearm just hadn't quite healed yet. And so he was testing that patience some more.


Then Week 2 at Houston rolled around, and the Colts were begging for his services. He played every single running back snap available in the game and took 18 carries for 88 yards and a touchdown in a win he finished after Anthony Richardson left in the second quarter with a brain injury.

This week, the Colts needed him even more. They were without Richardson, playing instead with a drop-back quarterback in Gardner Minshew, meaning the totality of the run game would fall on Moss. They were on the road in a raucous stadium against a Ravens defense that loves to blitz. It was windy and drizzly following a visit from Tropical Storm Ophelia. And they had to find some way to keep the ball out of Lamar Jackson's hands.

Moss' career high in carries entering Sunday was 24, in Minnesota last fall. He hit 30 carries one time in college.

But he became Indianapolis' bell-cow on Sunday, for 30 carries and their lone touchdown of the day. From the 17-yard line in the second quarter, Moss ran a wheel route up the right sideline against Patrick Queen and flipped his head back to find a rainbow from Minshew that he reeled in for a score.


Outside of that catch and the 24-yard run, Moss wasn't ripping off chunk plays because that isn't quite his style, and today wasn't a day to feel 100%. Built thickly at 5-foot-9 and 205 pounds, he likes to make a single cut before barreling downhill, spinning behind his blockers and would-be tacklers to add any additional blades of grass he can possibly find.

His 30 carries averaged 4.1 yards a piece, which was more than the Colts passing game could find on a drizzly day without Richardson, as it averaged 3.8 yards per pass play. They needed every yard he could find to get into Gay's range, and Moss' former college teammate nailed field goals of 54, 53, 53 and 53 yards.

The only points the Colts scored that weren't on Gay's leg came on Moss' 17-yard catch.

Baltimore Ravens linebacker Patrick Queen (6) chases down Indianapolis Colts running back Zack Moss (21) on the first play of the game, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023, at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.
He's still an NFL running back, so he knows he can't take anything for granted. A bone can break, or a lineman can roll up on him, or Taylor could come storming back, or any number of other factors could eat into the bell-cow role he's found for the first time in his four-year pro career.

But he'll always have that helmet slam in August, and the wife and son he did it for, and the story he'll tell Zavien Moss some day when he's older about the patience it took to come back. On Sunday, his father bottled that patience into 30 runs, including one where he got rolled up on and found a way to keep on going.

"It's meant a lot," Moss said, "but the job's not done."