Doyel: It's Duron Carter's fault

ANDERSON – This is Duron Carter’s fault. He ruined the beautiful mystery of training camp by being brilliant last year in Anderson – and then abysmal everywhere else.

The things they were saying about Carter a year ago – do you remember? Indianapolis Colts coach Chuck Pagano described watching him “plucking balls off (defensive backs’) heads like they were peanuts.” Offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton upped the ante when he said: “Every day he makes a play that makes you say ‘wow.’ ” And Chad Johnson tweeted the following during training camp: “Duron Carter top 10 receiver right now before playing a down, I know my (stuff) & I bet the interest on the $ in my savings bond…”

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They weren’t wrong – well, Pagano and Hamilton weren’t. Duron Carter was vacuuming passes off defenders’ heads. He was making wow plays, bigger and stronger and more explosive than anyone in the Colts’ secondary, and with hands made of flypaper.

Saw it with my own eyes.

Then came the exhibition games. Duron Carter was terrible. Saw that with my own eyes, too.

He dropped passes, returned kickoffs like he was scared of being hit, was sent to the Colts’ practice squad and spent the 2015 season there. Was let go shortly thereafter. Last I saw of Duron Carter he was back in the Canadian Football League, making big plays, then making a jerk of himself by bumping into an opposing coach after a touchdown.

Sorry, Chester Rogers, but this is Duron Carter’s fault.

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Who is Chester Rogers? He could be the revelation of the 2016 training camp. Or he could be the hoax. Who knows? In practice he looks tremendous, shifty and always open, the guy backup quarterback Scott Tolzien favors during 11-on-11 drills.

At Grambling? Rogers caught 155 passes in four years, returned a punt for a touchdown, ran the 40 in 4.49 seconds before the draft. He seems like a delightful young man, always smiling in Anderson and admitting he broke into happy tears when the Colts called him shortly after the 2016 NFL draft and invited him to camp. Chester Rogers is someone to root for. But is he someone to believe in? Not yet. Not until he plays well against another NFL team.

Sorry Chester. Like I say, it’s not your fault. It’s Duron Carter.

Jalil Brown? Sorry, but this really is your fault.

You remember Jalil Brown, right? He’s the cornerback who set Anderson afire last year – a defensive version of Duron Carter – by intercepting four passes in two weeks, including a two-pick day when he stole passes from Andrew Luck and Matt Hasselbeck.

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Brown even picked off a pass in the preseason against St. Louis, but in the 2015 regular season he played eight games without an INT. Since 2013 he has played 18 games for the Colts, and he has four pass breakups to show for that. Brown’s back in camp at Anderson and has been active again, getting his fingers on several passes. What does it mean? Not to get all Ecclesiastical on you, but it’s meaningless. Utterly meaningless.

The Colts themselves – the players, I mean – can't agree on who's for real in Anderson, and who's not.

“We’ll make bets,” says linebacker D’Qwell Jackson, “on who we think will make the team.”

Darius Butler, one of the sharpest players on roster, was nodding when I asked him about players who are ferocious in camp but field mice in games.

“Most of the time, 99 percent of the time, if a guy’s good in practice he’s going to be good in games,” Butler was saying. “But there are some people who have dominated all camp and those lights come on and they kind of fold up.”

And sometimes the opposite happens – a veteran looks overmatched in camp, even in the preseason, but produces when the games count. Which is why I’m not writing anyone off this preseason. Learned that one from Matt Hasselbeck.

Hasselbeck didn’t look good last year in Anderson. He didn’t look bad. He looked terrible. After the second exhibition game, Hasselbeck was my story. This was my money line, as I contemplated a possible injury to Andrew Luck:

“Matt Hasselbeck is not a workable Plan B.”

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Luck got hurt, Hasselbeck got the call, and he went 5-3 in eight starts. He was healthy in just half of those games – and went 4-0.

Training camp, man. You just don’t know what you’re watching. Why, just the other day I watched reserve safety Winston Guy – 32 NFL games, two pass break-ups, no interceptions – pick off a pass from Andrew Luck. What does that mean?

It means that Bruce Arians is right. In the preseason, when NFL players are wearing shorts, football isn’t really football. It’s futbol.

“Soccer,” Arians called training camp during a conversation with IndyStar Colts reporter Stephen Holder in March.

That quote is ringing in my ears at Anderson as I watch Phillip Dorsett burn two-time Pro Bowl cornerback Vontae Davis for a long touchdown. And a rookie receiver from Maryland named Marcus Leak wreak havoc on the Colts’ secondary. And Chester Rogers juke promising rookie T.J. Green – before Green left practice Wednesday with a calf strain – on a punt return. For all we know, Rogers is the one who hurt Green. Didn’t break his ankles with that move, but maybe he strained Green’s calf.

What does any of it mean? I’ll tell you what it means. It means I’m no longer thinking Biblical thoughts. No longer hearing Bruce Arians talk about soccer. Now I’m hearing Pete Townshend sing about a hard-earned lesson in meaninglessness.

Won’t get fooled again, is what I’m hearing.

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