Doyel: Was pursuit of record worth it for Reggie Wayne?
One day a week, Reggie Wayne musters up the strength to be Reggie Wayne. Talent, experience, wisdom – whatever he has, and he has all of those qualities and then some, he digs deep at age 36 and shows it to us. But only one day a week.
And not on Sunday.
Friday is Reggie Wayne's day to talk with the media. Most Colts will talk any day after practice, but the best of the best pick one day a week, and God bless 'em for that. Andrew Luck is Wednesday. Wayne is Friday. And he's good, very good, on Friday. He's humble and honest and thoughtful. He's wonderful. He's Reggie Wayne.
And then comes Sunday, and he becomes somebody else. Somebody less than Reggie Wayne, and I'm talking not just about production at receiver. Sadly, today, I'm talking not just about physical skills either. Today I'm talking about both of those and also about a third component, something we all saw Sunday against Jacksonville, and lots of us – Colts fans, Reggie Wayne fans, common decency fans – recoiled from it.
Those final two catches. On the last two real plays of the game. The Colts were beating Jacksonville 23-3 with time for one more legitimate play to get to the two-minute warning and take three knees to end this thing. And so on second-and-2 the Colts called for a quick pass to Wayne, a 3-yard gain for first down. Here was the two-minute warning.
But not the knee. Not yet.
The Colts called for another quick pass to Wayne, this one losing a yard, because he entered the game with a streak of 81 consecutive games with at least three catches, an NFL record, and Colts coach Chuck Pagano wanted to get him No. 82. So he did. With two gimme catches on the final two real plays, gaining a net total of two yards.
The quarterback who threw those passes made it clear they weren't his idea. "That's from above," Luck said. "Above me."
Reggie Wayne, this proud and humble man, let it happen. This is not the Reggie Wayne any of us know, not from a production standpoint, not from a skills standpoint, not from a decency standpoint. Maybe "decency" is the wrong word, but whatever it was, it was questionable enough that Pagano wanted to explain what he was doing to Jaguars coach Gus Bradley after the game. There's something unseemly about an NFL record being extended in such a way, in a game that is out of reach, a game in which the player in question – Reggie Wayne – had already been targeted seven times and managed just one catch for eight yards.
This was the day that streak deserved to end.
So afterward I wanted to talk to Wayne about it. About all of it. Those final two catches. His struggles. The win, the Colts' 11th in a row in the AFC South, a divisional streak more than twice as long as any other in the NFL. So much to talk to Wayne about, not all of it good, but he ducked the media. When the locker room opened his locker was already empty. Nobody could find him. Colts officials were apologizing, not that in the larger sense it matters. It's just striking, and so not like Reggie Wayne, to do what he did Sunday. Any of it. During and after the game.
More than the three-catch record – I've spent some time on it, but don't let that distract from the bigger issue here – is the drop-off in Reggie Wayne's game. This is a team issue because the Colts are clearly playoff-bound but not clearly dominant and will need greatness to win a postseason game on the road. But it's an individual issue because Wayne belongs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and to watch his production fall off a cliff is startling. He looked slower, unable to run down passes on Sunday. He looked unreliable, letting a potential touchdown, even if thrown a bit high and hard from point-blank range, zoom through his hands.
Where'd Reggie Wayne go?
With 50 catches for 605 yards through 10 games – he missed one with an elbow injury – he is on pace for 75 catches for 915 yards. That's a fine season. But look at the trend:
First five games: 45 targets, 30 catches, 384 yards (12.8 ypc).
Last five games: 45 targets, 20 catches, 221 yards (11.1 ypc).
In NFL history only three players have had more than 1,000 receiving yards in a season after age 35. One is Jerry Rice, who did it three times and gained 1,211 yards in 2002 at age 40. The other two, Jimmy Smith (1,023 in 2005) and Joey Galloway (1,014 in 2007), were 36.
Reggie Wayne is 36, and suffered a torn ACL just 13 months ago. His plummeting production should not be a surprise. And yet it is. Because he's Reggie Wayne, and you thought he'd be better than this.
That he'd be better than a lot of what happened on Sunday.
Connect with Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/gregg.doyel