Colts getting glimpse of OL's future in rookie starters Tanor Bortolini, Dalton Tucker

INDIANAPOLIS — The Colts might be getting a glimpse of the future right now.

The future of the offensive line.

Rookies Tanor Bortolini and Dalton Tucker finished Sunday’s win over the Titans in the starting lineup, holding their own against Tennessee’s imposing interior tandem of Jeffery Simmons and T’Vondre Sweat.

“I thought those guys did a hell of a job in protection,” Indianapolis head coach Shane Steichen said. “They played good, they played physical, they played hard.”

The two rookies took very different paths to the lineup.

Bortolini’s the player everybody saw coming. The prospective heir to a throne. The freakish athlete from a collegiate offensive line factory.

A three-star recruit out of Kewaunee, Wis., Bortolini headed down the road to play his college football at Wisconsin, a school famous for churning out NFL offensive linemen and running backs.

Finally at home as a center in his final year, Bortolini traveled to Indianapolis in February and turned in the best NFL combine workout a center has ever produced, convincing the Colts to pick him in the fourth round, the third center off the board. The moment he was drafted, Bortolini was tabbed as a potential heir to veteran Colts center Ryan Kelly, who is playing out the final year of his contract after talks of an extension were rebuffed by the franchise.

“Bort stepped right in and got to playing good football immediately,” Colts offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter said.

Colts news: How 6-4, 303-pound Colts rookie Tanor Bortolini ended up racing down the sidelines in joy

Tucker didn’t come from nowhere.

Not quite, although his path was a little harder than the rookie playing next to him. Tucker was an overlooked two-star recruit from a tiny high school in Paris, Ky., a starter at Marshall who wasn’t invited to the NFL scouting combine, catching the eyes of the NFL at the Thundering Herd’s pro day instead.

Tucker didn’t hear his name called on draft day, although he was one of the most coveted prospects available in the pool of undrafted free agents.

“Being an undrafted guy, you’ve watched him come in and work his tail off, day in and day out,” Bortolini said. “It’s not easy to make a roster undrafted, much less going and having to start an NFL game against one of the best defensive fronts in football.”

Colts news: How undrafted rookie G Dalton Tucker beat odds to make Colts

Even their paths to the starting lineup were a little different.

The Colts knew there was a possibility Bortolini might have to play this season. Kelly has been a rock in the middle of the Indianapolis line for nine years, but he’s only played a full season three times. When Kelly was forced out of the lineup by a neck injury three games into the season, Bortolini got a full week of preparation before taking his first NFL snap.

Tucker did not have that luxury.

The Colts liked what they saw from the bruising, physical Tucker in training camp, but they probably didn’t expect him to play so quickly. Not with one of the NFL’s best guards, Quenton Nelson, on the left.

Unlike Kelly, whose neck injury developed over the course of a week, the loss of right guard Will Fries was sudden. When Fries went down with a severe tibia injury in Jacksonville, Tucker found himself pushed into the lineup at a moment’s notice.

But neither player had it easy.

Bortolini opened his NFL career by sliding into the toughest spot on the offensive line and finding perennial Pittsburgh All-Pro Cameron Heyward lined up across from him.

“At center, it is even a little more complex, because you’re snapping the ball to the quarterback, obviously, you’re managing the snap count, the cadence,” Cooter said. “That sounds a lot easier than it is.”

Tucker had a similar experience.

He got his feet wet in the rain at Jacksonville, taking over right guard for 25 snaps when the Colts were in comeback mode. When Indianapolis handed him the starting job the next week, Simmons and Sweat were waiting.

“Your number gets called in this league, you never know exactly when,” Cooter said. “I would say those interior players for the Tennessee Titans are a pretty tough ask for a first start for a young guard, but he went in there and held his own.”

Tucker opened the first start of his career between Kelly and right tackle Braden Smith, two stalwarts with a long history of success in the NFL.

The first thing Tucker learned was the importance of technique at the next level.

“I mean, just how important your targets are, your hand placement and your feet, how important that is every single play, no matter what,” Tucker said. “If that isn’t, like, spot on or close to it, stuff is going to happen that you don’t want to happen.”

Bortolini had already learned the same lesson in his first two starts.

He has given up a sack, according to Sports Info Solutions; Tucker hasn’t experienced that kind of setback yet.

“I think I got beat by Cam Heyward a couple of times in that Pittsburgh game,” Bortolini said. “He got me on a couple that, when you’re in college, and sometimes in practice, you don’t get beat on. But a guy that’s been playing that long and has that much knowledge about it, has those kind of reactions, he was able to get me.”

Bortolini filed away the lesson, realized the same thing Tucker’s learned about pinpoint technique over the course of two starts, then found himself thrust back into action in the second half of a close game when Kelly was knocked out Sunday with a calf injury.

The Indianapolis offensive line was far from perfect, particularly in the running game. A string of three runs up the middle with the goal in sight got stuffed, and the running game at large was far from efficient.

But Bortolini and Tucker got the job done in pass protection.

“We didn’t give up any sacks in the game,” Steichen said. “Which was impressive.”

By the time the game ended and the Colts headed back to the locker room, Tucker had a chance to fully appreciate what he’d just done.

“It felt great,” Tucker said. “I mean, there are obviously things I need to fix and clean up, but after the game, all the guys came up to me, congratulated me. … It was very special.”

Bortolini had already had that feeling, sprinting full speed down the sideline in joy after the Colts rammed the ball down the Steelers’ throat for a touchdown on the first drive of his NFL career two weeks ago.

The two rookies could be together for a long time.

Fries, like Kelly, is in the final year of his contract, leaving uncertainty about his steps next offseason. Tucker is going to have a chance to establish himself as a starting-caliber NFL guard; Bortolini was likely on the radar for Indianapolis before he even made his first start, and Kelly’s status is uncertain after leaving Sunday’s game.

The two rookies had already given themselves a chance to be part of the Colts’ future with the way they played in the preseason.

Tucker and Bortolini might end up paired together for a long, long time.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts getting glimpse of OL's future in rookie starters Tanor Bortolini, Dalton Tucker