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Old 08-13-2018, 07:07 PM
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Default Kravitz on Kelly

https://www.wthr.com/article/kravitz...-set-his-young

Quote:
WESTFIELD (WTHR) - All the talk this summer has been about Andrew Luck's comeback. All the talk these past two days has been about Luck's transition from full neckbeard – 'twas glorious – to simple, Aaron Rodgers-style mustache, which he said Monday is not going over particularly well at home with his girlfriend, Nicole.

None of the talk this summer, although we're going to change that right now, has been about center Ryan Kelly's comeback as he attempts to re-start a career that ran into a brick wall last season due to injuries. As for Kelly's mustache, if that's what we're going to call it, well, I'll let Kelly describe the smattering of hairs that populate his upper lip.

"I grow probably the grossest facial hair on the offensive line,'' Kelly said. "His (Luck's) is superb, it's incredible…I wish I could grow one but I've got this trashy thing going on.''

A lot of good things have to happen if the Colts are going to be competitive or even good this season, and one of those things is Kelly's return to form. A lot of other things have to happen, clearly; somebody's got to emerge from the battered running-back group, somebody has to show up at receiver besides T.Y. Hilton, the linebackers have to be a surprise and so on and so forth. This is a team with a host of questions, but Kelly can't be one of them and doesn't figure to be one of them.

His rookie season in 2016 was solid, Kelly, the Rimington Award winner as the nation's top center, consistently showing why he was Ryan Grigson's final first-round draft choice. He then went on to start all 16 games, one of just 11 rookies and one of just two rookie centers to start every game that season. That was during a year when Luck was fighting through injuries, yet the Colts still finished seventh in points scored while Luck somehow ended up seventh in total QBR. (People forget that Luck, even in severely diminished form, was still quite strong statistically). Running back Frank Gore also eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark, which rates as a significant number for a team that hasn't been able to run the ball consistently for years.

None of this was a surprise for a player who didn't surrender a single sack his last two seasons at Alabama and missed just 15 assisgnments on 1,818 snaps during that time. He didn't show up with quite the same fanfare as rookie guard Quenton Nelson, but he was, and is, expected to be nothing less than a modern-day Jeff Saturday, a player who will be the O-line's centerpiece for years to come.

Then, in 2017, it all fell to pieces, both for Kelly and the Colts. He broke his foot in the preseason and missed the first four games of the regular season, then dealt with a concussion he suffered in late November, at which point he was done for the season. Kelly might have been able to play the final two games of that lost season, but the medical people felt like it wasn't worth the risk. During that 7-game interim when he did play, Kelly never got his legs under him; in fact, according to Pro Football Focus, he graded out as the 31st best center in the league, not the kind of placement you'd expect for a former first-rounder. But…he was hurt, so he gets something of a mulligan.

No mulligans this year.

Not for Kelly and not for this offensive line, which has been a problem area for the Colts since Luck entered the league in 2012. They can't afford to struggle, especially with a quarterback who just came back after not having played an NFL game in 585 days.

"Yeah, in some ways (it's a career re-set),'' he said Monday. "Last year wasn't a great year. But you look at everybody, in their NFL career, they're going to have a year like that when they're going to miss that time. So hopefully, knock on wood, I've got that out of the way early. But yeah, it was a tough year, with no Andrew, we weren't playing well, we went through a lot of offensive linemen.''

The broken foot he suffered in camp, that was something he could handle. Injuries are a part of an athlete's life, and with a broken foot, he knew how long it would take to return to the lineup. And he did recover, missing the first four games, returning for the fifth game and playing through Week 12.

That concussion, though, that was very different. Every concussion is different, with different symptoms for different people. Some recover quickly and some take a significant amount of time – which is what's so frustrating. When do the symptoms diminish? Will I feel better tomorrow, or next week, or three months from now? Will I ever feel better? Kelly thought about returning to the lineup for the final few games, but after talking to the organization and conferring with doctors, after the symptoms returned when he got hit during practice, it was determined it didn't make much sense to risk it – especially at the tail end of a lost season.

"Our neurosurgeon asked me to talk to one of his classes at Butler in the offseason,'' Kelly said. "You can look on an MRI and see a torn ACL, a fractured ankle, a broken hand. A concussion, you can do a CT scan and it's not going to show. Every symptom is different. The toughest part as a competitor is being judged in your peers' and coaches' eyes. That's the thing about a concussion is, you can't do anything. You see a guy, he broke his foot, he'll be out there doing upper body. It's not that way with a concussion.

"…I've had three concussions and all of them have taken different amounts of time to come back. You don't feel right, it's tough to sleep, you're sensitive to light, just the basic things. You can be in a car crash and have the same symptoms. But when you have to hit people every day for your job…''

Kelly, a smart guy who already has his master's degree from Alabama, knows what all the studies show regarding concussions and their long-term impact. But even after this, the third concussion of his football career, he is comfortable with taking the risk that comes with choosing football as a profession. At least for now, he is.

"You can't live scared,'' he said. "You've got to live smart in the game. I know there's been a lot of research (into the long-term effects of concussions). Look, we all have a time card and you don't know when it's going to get punched, so you try to live this life for as long as you can.''

Finally, the Colts have an offensive line with a pedigree. Anthony Castonzo, who is still dealing with a balky hamstring, was a first-rounder. Nelson, the left guard, is this year's first rounder, selected sixth overall. Kelly is a first-round. Matt Slauson, the veteran right guard, was a sixth-rounder. And Braden Smith, who got a long, hard look at right tackle Monday at practice at Grand Park, was selected in the second round of this most recent draft.

One thing we know for sure, none of those guys will be fielding punts, as the big guys did for fun at the end of Monday's practice.

Kelly declined the invitation.

"I figured I'd go out there and jam my thumb,'' he said, smiling.

Better safe than sorry. The Colts are going to need Kelly, need him desperately as he tries to build off 2016 and consign 2017 to the dustbin of history.
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