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- Mar 19, 2019
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Although Kelly has faced some injury issues early on in his three-year career, he has made a big impact while on the field which indicates that the future is bright.
“Ryan Kelly is probably the most underrated offensive lineman in the NFL,” Colts quarterback Andrew Luck told reporters last season.
According to Pro Football Focus — which considers Kelly one of the top 25 offensive linemen in the NFL — Kelly has only surrendered one sack in his career (2018), and he also allowed just three quarterback hits and eight quarterback hurries last year.
He received PFF’s eighth-highest grade among centers (69.9) in 2018. Among centers who played at least 50 percent of their team’s offensive snaps, he was one of just nine to allow one or fewer sacks, one of 11 to allow two or fewer hits, and allowed the third-fewest hurries.
In the 14 games in which Kelly was active last season (including playoffs), the Colts averaged 102.9 rushing yards per game versus 91.8 without him. If you take those numbers starting in Week 6 when the Colts’ run game began to get established, that number jumps to 118.7 rushing yards per game with Kelly, including three games where they had at least 200 yards on the ground.
The Colts also had their best pass protection performances with Kelly in the lineup. The six games in which they allowed no sacks all occurred with No. 78 at center. On the season, Indy averaged 1.0 sack allowed per game when Kelly was in and 1.8 when he was out.
We all can see the impact a center has on the field physically, but what we don’t see is the mental and verbal responsibilities they have to identify certain things in the defense and communicate them to their teammates.
“Yeah, Ryan was excellent,” Colts head coach Frank Reich said about Kelly last season when asked about his ability to make calls on the line. “I think he’s been pretty good all year and really his leadership in that area and really in every area as far as the offensive line play has been good. But I think it keeps getting better every week.”
With Kelly in the middle, the Colts’ offensive line has been as good as we’ve seen it in a decade. Luck went without being sacked from the first drive of Week 5 all the way until the third quarter of Week 12 — a total of 239 dropbacks, which is the third-longest such streak in NFL history.
The offensive line’s performance with Kelly anchoring it in 2018 earned him his first career designation as a Pro Bowl alternate.