Doyel: Mr. Potato Head will be trying to protect Andrew Luck
INDIANAPOLIS — The Indianapolis Colts’ left guard is a center, their right guard is a tackle, and their left tackle? He’s a head case.
Football meets Mr. Potato Head as far as the offensive line goes for the Colts, and their season-opener Sunday won’t be child’s play: The Detroit Lions’ defensive line was No. 2 in the league last season with 34.5 sacks, including 14½ from Pro Bowl defensive end Ezekiel Ansah.
It’s not quite the same old story for the Colts, who have a history of failing to protect quarterback Andrew Luck.
It’s worse than that.
The Colts enter the season with a defense decimated by injuries, most notably at cornerback but also at safety, linebacker and defensive line. If ever there was a time for the Colts offense to hang 40 on an opponent, this is it. No telling what that defense can do. We’ll find out together on Sunday.
But to hang 40 on an opponent, the Colts have to be able to run or pass, preferably both. To do either, the offensive line has to be solid.
To date, it has not.
In our only extended preseason look at the Colts’ first-team offensive line, coach Chuck Pagano waved the white flag and got his star quarterback the hell out of there. That happened at halftime of the Colts’ third preseason game, against the Philadelphia Eagles on Aug. 27, when the plan was to have Luck play the entire first half, come in for halftime, then go back out for another series or two in the third quarter.
Plans changed after a first half in which Luck was sacked three times and hit three other times. He looked great when he was able to throw the ball, as he has all preseason — 13-of-18 for 134 yards against the Eagles, and finished the preseason 21-of-26 for 205 yards — but Luck spent too much time picking himself and his once-lacerated kidney off the Lucas Oil Stadium field turf.
And so we enter the 2016 season, wondering the same thing we’ve wondered for four years: Can the hometown NFL franchise protect its franchise quarterback?
To a man, they say: Yes. Not sure what else you’d expect them to say, but confidence is not a problem for this group. Experience is, and not just in the NFL, though it starts there with the line’s anchor, rookie center Ryan Kelly.
He’ll be staring across the line at Haloti Ngata, a five-time Pro Bowler who is simply enormous: 6-4, 345 pounds. Kelly is confident in himself and the line, of course. He sounds like the most confident one of the bunch, which is cool and competitive and also kind of cute. Like he knows, you know? But say this for Kelly: He thinks he knows.
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“If you don’t have the confidence or the drive or the want to be the best,” Kelly has said, “you won’t be great.”
Kelly has that confidence. Of protecting Luck and creating lanes for running backs, this is what he says: “That’s our job and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Out of the mouths of babes …
Hey, he could be right. That’s the thing with this offensive line. The horrid display against Philadelphia notwithstanding — and a preseason overall in which the running game never got untracked and the first-team offense didn’t score a touchdown — there’s no real track record that says what this group can do. Best we can do for now is piece together little bits of information and see what that looks like.
And it looks like Mr. Potato Head.
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Here’s an ear pretending to be an eyeball: Left guard Jonotthan Harrison is a converted center who wasn’t terribly good at center — the Colts devoted their No. 1 offseason asset, their first-round pick, to his replacement — and who doesn’t know if he’s a guard for now, or forever. He’s playing there out of necessity, what with starter Jack Mewhort (knee) a likely game-time decision, at best, on Sunday.
Harrison has started exactly one game in his life at guard:
In 2010. At the University of Florida.
“I just show up to work every day and whatever the coaches ask me, I’m wiling to do,” Harrison said Wednesday. “My job is to trust their decision, and whatever they need me to do, I’m willing to do to 100 percent.”
That’s well and good, I told Harrison, but is Andrew Luck going to be safe Sunday?
“This is a great offensive line,” Harrison said. “If all of us are communicating, working hard, doing our job on any given play, we don’t have to worry about him being healthy — because we know he’ll be healthy.”
One locker over is Denzelle Good, who has a curious habit of showering before practice – Harrison teased him about “washing your hands before you put them in the dirt” — and who has a history of having never played the position he’ll start on Sunday.
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Good also is an oddity in that he comes from Mars Hill University and will make his first career start, at any level, at right guard on Sunday. He’s a nose, pretending to be a mouth. But he has this going for him: He’s pretty sure he can handle it.
“I feel like it suits me pretty good to play guard,” he said. “I like the transition, I like the position, I like being right there in the action.”
That’s well and good, I told Good, but is Andrew Luck in good hands?
“I definitely feel like Andrew’s in good hands,” he said. “We’re going to protect him. That’s job No. 1 for us.”
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The employee in charge of protecting Luck’s blind side is Anthony Castonzo, the Colts’ most talented but erratic lineman. When he’s good, he’s Pro Bowl good, rated among the NFL’s best left tackles by Pro Football Focus in 2013 and ’14.
When he’s bad? He’s a turnstile, and once that thing starts spinning, it doesn’t stop. After the preseason game against Philadelphia, Pagano noted Castonzo’s tendency to be so hard on himself that he loses focus and allows one poor play to mushroom into many more.
“You have to move on and go to the next play,” Pagano said this week. “Treat every play like it’s got a life of its own.”
The Colts forge ahead toward Sunday, toward their 2016 opener, toward what could be the longest season of Andrew Luck’s life.
Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atfacebook.com/gregg.doyel.