'I broke down a little bit': How undrafted rookie G Dalton Tucker beat odds to make Colts

INDIANAPOLIS — The news came suddenly.

The news Dalton Tucker had spent two days hoping he would see. Tucker knew he had played well in his first NFL training camp; the Colts had made him a fixture on the second-team offensive line.

But he also knew he’d gone undrafted, leaving the rookie guard from Marshall with a healthy level of uncertainty. Tucker spent most of the time in his hotel room, waiting for the final word to come.

Then his phone buzzed with a text for Colts offensive line coach Tony Sparano Jr. A group text; Tucker was part of the team’s active offensive line. Before he had time to process the news, his agent, John Pace, called to tell Tucker he’d made the team.

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Tucker sat back on the bed.

Then called his wife, Blass.

“I broke down a little bit,” Tucker said. “I’ve been dreaming and praying about this since I was a kid.”

Tucker married Blass Morrone, a former Marshall cheerleader, last May.

She’s not in Indianapolis with him right now. Blass is a doctor in residency at Marshall’s Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, placing her at roughly the same point in her career as her husband, working hard in the final step toward realizing a lifelong dream.

For most of the past month, they’ve been roughly five hours apart.

And simultaneously right there for each other.

“She was very supportive,” Tucker said. “She always told me: ‘No matter what happens, keep your head up, keep driving.’ And I tell her the same thing every time she would call me and say, ‘The day at work didn’t go very good today.’”

There was little need for sympathy on Tuesday.

Only celebration. Right after he got off the phone with his wife, Tucker called his mom to give his parents the news.

Tucker has beaten the odds.

Make no mistake about it, he looks like he belongs. A 6-6, 307-pound man with a 7-foot wingspan, Tucker looked right at home in the Indianapolis locker room on Thursday, wearing glasses above his beard at a locker under a plate with his name and number -- 68 -- on it.

But it still took a lot to get here. Tucker played football at Bourbon County High in Paris, Ky., a 10,000-person town just north of Lexington.

“Small-town Kentucky,” Tucker said. “My high school didn’t get recruited a lot.”

When he visited Marshall, Tucker fell in love with the school, then spent four seasons developing into a starter for the Thundering Herd before realizing his full potential as a junior in 2022. Tucker made 26 starts over the next two seasons, but he remained under the radar, a draft prospect who played in the Hula Bowl but wasn’t invited to the NFL scouting combine.

He had little reason to worry.

The Colts had already found him, finding themselves drawn to Tucker on tape while watching film of another Marshall player. Indianapolis held an interview with Tucker on Zoom early in the process, then watched him catch the attention of pro scouts at Marshall’s Pro Day, displaying impressive explosiveness with a vertical leap of 34 inches and a broad jump of 9 feet, 4 inches, huge numbers for a player of his size.

A few more teams showed interest after that performance.

No team cared as deeply as the Colts. Indianapolis brought in Tucker for a top 30 visit at the team’s headquarters, the only NFL team to take that close a look at the big guard. During the process, Tucker built a tight bond with Sparano, the rest of the coaching staff and general manager Chris Ballard.

By the time the draft arrived, Tucker only wanted to play for the Colts. Indianapolis offered Tucker more money than a lot of undrafted free agents, handing him a signing bonus of $40,000 and $200,000 in guarantees to come to Indianapolis.

But he could have gotten more. Much more. Another team offered Tucker a bigger signing bonus, a sum that would have made him one of the highest-paid undrafted free agents in this rookie class.

Tucker chose Indianapolis because of the relationships he’d built during the process.

Relationships that did not guarantee Tucker a spot on the 53-man roster. An undrafted free agent is always fighting an uphill battle.

The undrafted free agent from Marshall made his opportunity count.

“Tucker had a hell of a camp,” Indianapolis head coach Shane Steichen said.

Tucker has an NFL offensive lineman’s body. Big and long-limbed, Tucker’s ability to move made him an effective pulling guard in training camp, sliding out and eliminating blockers.

He also has the mentality.

“Kind of reminds me a little bit of Matt Slauson,” veteran Colts center Ryan Kelly said. “Probably a little more talented. I love Slau to death, but he was in Year 10 by the time we got to him. Slauson also broke his neck and sternum in a game and kept playing, so he was tough as nails, too.”

Kelly might not have realized it, but the toughness to play through injury fits Tucker, the same way it fits the former Colts offensive guard. When he was at Marshall, Tucker played through a painful cartilage issue in his knee, putting off a surgical repair in order to keep playing.

“I didn’t want to be the guy where it was like, ‘Tuck’s knee’s hurting him, so he’s not going to go,’” Tucker said. “I didn’t want to be that guy, so every week I was out there with the guys, trying to prove to them that I’m here with you guys. I’m doing this with you. I’m not going to be standing in the back.”

He might have cost himself a few looks from NFL teams.

Not that it matters now. The Colts caught a glimpse of Tucker on tape, stuck with him through the draft process and found an NFL offensive lineman in the process.

Kelly has been telling people that he believes this Colts offensive line, top to bottom, is the most talented of any of the ones he’s led in Indianapolis.

Tucker beat out veterans like former Eagles and Colts guard Josh Sills, who was waived after the second preseason game, to be a part of it. When Kelly first arrived in Indianapolis, the Colts were in the middle of a 22-year streak of an undrafted free agent making the initial roster, and even though that streak has been snapped, it never gets old.

The rest of the locker room gets a little juice when a guy like Tucker makes the roster.

“When they sing in training camp, man, and the signing bonus is like zero, you couldn’t be more pumped for that guy, right?” Kelly said. “To go the hard route, small school, minimal offers out of high school, praying that some teams are watching film of your senior year to make it to having a seat in the room is so incredible.”

Tucker’s seat in the Indianapolis locker room has his name on it now.

The Marshall product is a Colt now, an NFL player with a three-day weekend before the grind of the regular season begins. Tucker knew exactly what he wanted to do with it.

Blass was here in Indianapolis for the Cardinals game, but she had to leave the next day to go back to work on her residency. The couple haven’t seen each other since then.

When Tucker left the locker room on Thursday, he was planning to get in the car and make the 4-hour, 45-minute drive to Huntington, W.V., to celebrate with his wife.

“I’m about to go right now,” Tucker said. “I told her I was coming in tomorrow, so I’m going to try to surprise her.”

Tucker’s already pulled off at least one big surprise this week.

Why not one more?

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: 'I broke down a little bit': How undrafted rookie G Dalton Tucker beat odds to make Colts