Blue
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- Mar 19, 2019
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INDIANAPOLIS — In the NFL, guys who check the “height, weight, speed” boxes are always coveted. However, the league is not lacking in top-level players who may have to compensate for their lack of size with other exceptional areas of their game.
Recently, Sports Illustrated’s Andy Benoit recently came up with a high-quality NFL team strategically constructed using only undersized players:
"We decided to find out, constructing a team of players who are notably lighter and shorter than the average height and weight of players at his position. This is not an All-Star team of small guys, per se, but rather the best all-around team one can construct—this exercise also factored how players fit together and into a scheme. We’re building this team the way a smart NFL GM would.”
Making the team at wide receiver is T.Y. Hilton of the Indianapolis Colts.
Unlike Skee-Lo in 1995, the guys on Benoit’s All-Small Team don’t have to wish they were a little bit taller. And according to Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, Hilton is a baller.
Many of the undersized players on the Colts roster that general manager Chris Ballard inherited in 2017 are no longer with the team, but Hilton is an institution within the Colts’ facility. What he lacks in size, he makes up for in grit, heart and playmaking ability.
Here is what Benoit had to say about Hilton and his other All-Small receivers:
- “T.Y. Hilton, Colts (5' 10", 183 pounds)
- Brandin Cooks, Rams (5' 10", 183 pounds)
- Tyler Lockett, Seahawks (5' 10", 182 pounds)
- Jamison Crowder, Redskins (5' 9", 177 pounds)
- Danny Amendola, Lions (5' 11", 190 pounds)
It’s hard to leave DeSean Jackson off this roster, but Hilton and Cooks are just as fast and have more left in the tank. Last year Lockett had one of the most proficient downfield receiving seasons in history, and he can probably work the deep-intermediate levels in the right system. With pure vertical weapons like Hilton and Cooks, the third and fourth receivers must be viable underneath. Crowder, who is shifty on shallow routes, gets the nod, with the understanding that some of his snaps might go to the less talented, but more schematically expansive, Amendola, who can play inside or outside.”
Hilton has been performing at an exceptional level for his entire career, but his gutsy performance throughout the 2018 season is a microcosm of how his career has developed to this point.
In Week 4 at home against the Houston Texans, Hilton suffered chest and hamstring injuries that cost him roughly 2 1/2 games. Upon his return, his clean bill of health would only last a handful more games, as he then suffered a dual low and high ankle sprain on the same leg against the Texans again in Week 14.
From there and into the Colts’ improbable playoff run into January, Hilton chose to tough it out for the good of the team. You can count on one hand the amount of times he was able to practice over the final five games of the season.
“It was a lot of pain, but I’m a team guy. My teammates needed me," Hilton told reporters during the team's offseason program. "So I was able to just miss practice and go out there on Sunday and just go out there, play and give it everything I had. Coach Frank (Reich) allowed me to do that, him and Chris (Ballard). As long as I was out there I was helping the team no matter what.”
He was far from a detriment to the team despite the fact he was operating on one healthy leg. Hilton led the entire NFL in receiving yards over the final half of the season, averaging 114.6 receiving yards per game since Week 10. That’s not too bad for a guy with an injury that team doctors told him would take a few months to get totally healed.