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After starting safety Malik Hooker left the game due to an Achilles injury in Sunday’s 28-11 win over the Minnesota Vikings, the Indianapolis Colts got their third-round pick in Julian Blackmon on the field for his NFL debut.
Despite the fact that the Colts didn’t truly expect Blackmon to have much of an impact until October given his offseason was filled with rehab from a torn ACL, the rookie showed out in the Week 2 win.
Blackmon took over after Hooker was ruled out, and it seems the latter will be done for the year with a torn Achilles. But the former impressed his head coach by making plays almost immediately.
“He was all around the ball, all around the ball. I mean just from my eye watching the game, he played great,” said Frank Reich after Sunday’s game. “He made the one play on the Cover 2 down the middle – that looked like it’s going to be a big play for their offense, and he breaks it up, gets his head and hat on the ball. Those are the instincts that we saw on film. We know that that’s the player that he’s going to be.”
Blackmon missed almost all of training camp due rehabbing from ACL surgery. The Colts had their starter sin Hooker and Khari Willis to go along with some solid depth. They knew they could bring him along at a nice pace without rushing him.
But the Utah product saw plenty of snaps on Sunday, which was a change of pace from being inactive in Week 1. But not only did he see snaps, he was impactful. He had a pass breakup in the middle of the field, he was responsible for tipping the ball on Willis’ interception and he laid the hit stick on a Vikings offensive player in the fourth quarter.
It was evident that Blackmon came to play, and he was flying all around the secondary. The instincts were on full display, but so were the playmaking skills the Colts saw in the pre-draft process.
“However, he just deserves so much credit. Number one, physically what he had to come back from,” Reich said. “Number two, just mentally staying ready. He couldn’t practice for so long, and he wasn’t even able to participate in walk-thrus because of how we had him designated. A credit to him staying in it mentally. Then you could just tell the competitor in him showed up today on game day.”
Being mentally prepared to go in and have a role on Sunday was an objective for the rookie.
“What’s nice is I always have tried to mentally prepare. So once I finally got on the field it was easy because I didn’t sit back and pretend like I wasn’t a part of the team,” Blackmon said after the game. “I also have a responsibility and my responsibility off the field was to make sure I knew what I was doing so when I got my name called, I’d be ready.”
The Colts are likely to be without Hooker for the year and given that he will be a free agent in 2021, Blackmon has the chance to seize a starting role beginning with the Week 3 matchup against the Jets.