GREGG DOYEL

Doyel: T.Y. Hilton was angry ... and open

Gregg Doyel
gregg.doyel@indystar.com
  • Colts at Steelers, 8:30 p.m. Sunday, NBC
With Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Sterling Moore (26) defending him, Indianapolis Colts wide receiver T.Y. Hilton (13) catches the ball in the end zone to make the score 16-12 during the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Nov. 29, 2015, at Lucas Oil Stadium. Colts won 25-12.

T.Y. Hilton was hopping up and down, angry at passes that weren’t coming his way and angry at passes that were coming his way but sailing over his head. He was animated, and T.Y. Hilton doesn’t get animated.

“I’ve never seen him animated,” Indianapolis Colts quarterback Matt Hasselbeck was telling me after this victory, this methodical 25-12 strangling of the Tampa Bay Bucs on Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium. “T.Y. is usually more …”

Here, Hasselbeck paused and then finally stopped. He was looking for the right word to describe a receiver who wears colorful backpacks to the stadium and drinks coffee from cups with a faux handgun for a handle and has worn a T-shirt into the locker room that said, "Always be yourself unless you can be T.Y. Hilton. Then ... always be T.Y. Hilton"

Now Hasselbeck has found the right word.

“Silly,” he says. “T.Y. gets silly.”

On Sunday he was more angry than silly, frustrated after a first half that saw the Colts trailing 12-6 — two field goals, no touchdowns — going into the locker room.

And Hilton, he  saw some things. He  saw routes that were open, opportunities that were missed. He told Hasselbeck as much, and he didn’t get silly about it. He got serious, though not as serious as he was during the first half when he literally was hopping mad after plays, gesturing angrily back at the pocket.

“Yeah,” Hilton was telling me afterward. “I came in, and I told Matt, ‘I feel like I can get open.’”

Oh?

Indianapolis Colts wide receiver T.Y. Hilton (13) celebrates a fourth quarter touchdown against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The Colts had the ball to start the third quarter, and the first three plays were passes — all to T.Y. Hilton. He caught two of them for 37 yards, and caught the third one with a sideline leap but was pushed out of bounds before he could get his feet down. By then the Colts were in field-goal range, and Adam Vinatieri’s 26-yarder drew the Colts within 12-9.

Next drive, more Hilton. The Colts were at the Bucs’ 19 after a 31-yard completion from Hasselbeck to Donte Moncrief — who had eight catches for 114 yards — and Hilton zoomed past Bucs cornerback Sterling Moore, all the way into the end zone, where he pulled in the pass for a 19-yard score. The Colts led 19-12, and this game had turned for good.

Until Sunday, Hilton had shown a much better connection with Andrew Luck, who was drafted in the same 2012 rookie class. When Luck is behind center, Hilton is the No. 1 target — 548 receiving yards and three touchdowns in seven games this season. In the first three games with Hasselbeck starting for the injured Luck? Just 148 yards for Hilton. No touchdowns. And the first half Sunday was more of the same: two catches, 36 yards, no TDs.

And then at halftime, Hilton told Hasselbeck what was missing from the Colts’ offense: T.Y. Hilton.

Funny thing is, veteran receiver Andre Johnson told Hasselbeck the same thing at halftime. And so did Andrew Luck, watching the game in shorts and a sweatshirt, with the play sheet wrapped around his left forearm and the coaches’ radio feed in his ear. Colts coaches in the press box, with the added advantage of TV replay and game film, saw the same thing and told Hasselbeck as much:

Hilton’s open.

Message delivered, Hasselbeck zeroed in on Hilton on the first three plays of the third quarter and then for the touchdown, which led to a rather unfortunate-looking dance in the end zone, something Hilton called “the bobble,” helpfully spelling it for the local media corps, knowing we had zero chance of recognizing a dance move Hilton says is big in Miami.

Late in the fourth quarter Hasselbeck went to Hilton again, finding him scurrying in front of the secondary for a 3-yard quick-hitter in the front left corner of the end zone. That made it 25-12, which was the final margin, and officially stole the headlines from Moncrief. Until Hilton heated up, Moncrief was the rock upon which Hasselbeck was building his 26-for-42, 315-yard masterpiece.

Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Donte Moncrief (10) brings the ball upfield after a reception against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

But these guys, Hilton and Moncrief I mean, they’re crazy about each other.

“It’s not always normal,” Hasselbeck was saying, that two such obviously talented receivers would cheer so hard for each other — knowing one of them, as Hasselbeck put it, “is stealing catches” from the other.

“We’re like brothers,” Moncrief said of Hilton, who popped out of the shower on cue and yelled, “Whoo, Moncrief! Landshark!”

And then Hilton gave Moncrief the landshark sign, putting his thumb to his forehead and pointing his other four fingers skyward. Moncrief said the sign, like Hilton’s carefully selected backpacks, is symbolic.

“We’re hunting,” Moncrief says.

They ate well Sunday, Hasselbeck with his first 300-yard passing game since 2011 and Moncrief with his career-high eight catches and Hilton with six catches for 95 yards and his second two-touchdown game of the season. When it was over, Hilton had nothing to show for it, though, having given away one touchdown ball to his wife and then handing the second to a kid in the crowd.

And so it was that Colts coach Chuck Pagano walked into the locker room Sunday after this victory and handed out a game ball to the little receiver from Miami Springs, the animated and angry receiver who was hopping mad and telling Hasselbeck to get him the darn ball and then celebrating this victory by pulling on a black hooded sweatshirt with the following words in huge letters:

In Hilton We Trust.

Silly receiver. Special, too.

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.

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