Why Were Colts ‘Splitting Hairs’ on Kicker?

The Indianapolis Colts decided undrafted rookie Rodrigo Blankenship showed enough in a kicking completion to earn the job over Chase McLaughlin. But was this decision basically a hunch?

INDIANAPOLIS — In the end, the Indianapolis Colts said they projected undrafted rookie Rodrigo Blankenship would be a better kicker than incumbent Chase McLaughlin.

That’s what general manager Chris Ballard and head coach Frank Reich said in a Sunday Zoom video call.

The assessment on this projection is open for some interpretation.

For starters, if you’re a Colts fan, you want to hear that Blankenship won the job because he was better in the training camp competition. Neither Ballard nor Reich came out and said that.

The term Ballard repeated was that the Colts were “splitting hairs” on the choice. Both were good. It was a close call.

That suggests McLaughlin, who made one more kick than Blankenship in two scrimmages at Lucas Oil Stadium, could have had better overall numbers. It stands to reason that if Blankenship made more kicks in the competition, the Colts would have come out and said that.

Ballard sounded like he anticipated some second-guessing.

“The first four or five days before y’all even got out there,” he said of the media watching camp practices, “Rod didn’t even miss. Then he kind of went through a little rough patch. Then on the second scrimmage, I thought he looked really fluid and comfortable.”

Blankenship missed only one kick in the second scrimmage while McLaughlin missed three. So if the final camp practice was weighted more heavily, it makes sense to go with the rookie.

“At the end of the day it was a tough choice, and we just decided to with Rod,” Ballard said. “I just think and our staff, we just think that he’s got something to him.”

Undrafted rookie kicker Rodrigo Blankenship received a $20,000 signing bonus to compete for the Indianapolis Colts job :: Robert Scheer/USA TODAY Sports

There’s no denying Blankenship is an interesting story, how he walked on at Georgia, eventually earned a scholarship, and in his final college season won the Lou Groza Award bestowed upon the nation’s top kicker.

That Ballard said Blankenship has “something to him,” suggests this was basically a hunch. They can say all they want about how much they respect McLaughlin, but when the opinion about Blankenship is that there’s “something to him,” they’re also saying they didn’t see the same in McLaughlin.

“We like Chase,” Ballard said. “Chase is going to kick in the league, but at the end of the day, we were splitting hairs between the two guys. We had done a lot of work in the pre-draft process with Rod. We thought we saw what we needed to see here and ended up making a choice on Rod.”

So the Colts were also weighing their assessment of Blankenship based on scouting, which led to the rookie receiving a $20,000 signing bonus to come to Indianapolis to compete for the job. That could be interpreted that the Colts saw Blankenship as an upgrade before the competition commenced.

MORE: Check out Horseshoe Nation’s premium page

As much as Ballard is trusted with making the right decisions, and in my opinion he’s been successful more often than not in rebuilding this team as he enters his fourth year, the media is expected to analyze everything.

Until we see how Blankenship handles the pressure of NFL games, especially when a game is on the line or if he has to kick in inclement weather, something he didn’t have to do much of at Georgia, we’re going to wonder if the Colts made the right choice.

The proof will be in how he kicks this season. That’s the bottom line to how this judgment call plays out.

Because future Hall-of-Famer Adam Vinatieri kicked with an injured leg for 12 weeks before ending up on injured reserve and needing December surgery, the Colts missed 15 kicks, including a league-high six extra points in 2019. Had the Colts made three or four more kicks, that could have translated to three more victories. Instead of finishing 7-9 with seven losses in their last nine games, the Colts could have been 10-6 and possibly in the playoffs.

That’s why this kicker job takes on added importance. It’s not enough to just make the easy kicks. Blankenship has to make most of the important ones.

Reich reiterated the team’s position when asked for his two cents.

“I would just echo the same thing,” he said. “They are all tough decisions. That might’ve been the toughest one and toughest conversation, given like what you said, (McLaughlin) was the incumbent. He performed well last year.

"As hard as those discussions were, looking at numbers and feeling the overall thing – with the handful of us that were in the discussion on this trying to sort it through, that was just the general sentiment. I think it was very difficult, but at the end of the day, we have to project who is going to be the best kicker for us this year, who is going to produce the best? I agree with Chris, that we felt going in that both these guys were going to end up in the league. We felt like they both were going to be good kickers for a lot of years. So it was a tough choice, but we are excited to have Rod as our kicker.”

Here’s hoping that Blankenship lives up to the Colts’ projection and delivers on the faith shown in him.

If so, the Colts could be set at kicker for the next decade, if not longer. Ballard and his staff will look smart for making the right call.

If Blankenship struggles, well, at the very least there could be another kicking competition next preseason. And the Colts will be wary of making the same mistake twice in going with a hunch.

MORE: Check out all 32 NFL Team Previews by Sports Illustrated

(Phillip B. Wilson has covered the Indianapolis Colts for more than two decades and authored the 2013 book 100 Things Colts Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die. He’s on Twitter @pwilson24, on Facebook at @allcoltswithphilb and @100thingscoltsfans, and his email is phillipbwilson24@yahoo.com.)