In the blink of an eye, Mo Alie-Cox suddenly became the elder statesman in the tight end room for the Indianapolis Colts.
The retirement of Jack Doyle paved the way toward Alie-Cox receiving a new three-year deal this offseason and now that he looks around the room as the starter, he quickly realized he’s the one everyone else will look up to.
“Being the leader in the room, going first in every drill, setting an example and just showing all the new guys what it is. It’s me,” Alie-Cox said Wednesday. “I’m going into Year Six, the next one is Kylen (Granson), he’s going into Year Two. So, it’s just like being a mentor to all the young guys in the room, showing them little things to do day in and day out and showing them how to be a pro.”
While Granson will be going into his second season, he will be joined by third-round pick Jelani Woods and sixth-round pick Andrew Ogletree.
It seems like just yesterday, the Colts were among the teams that went to Alie-Cox’s tryout following his basketball career at VCU. They signed him to a free-agent deal in 2017, and the rest is history.
But now the stakes are higher. Alie-Cox will be relied upon in a massive way considering how often the tight end position is used by Frank Reich.
Not to mention, Alie-Cox has quickly noticed how much Matt Ryan likes to use the position.
“Working with Matt (Ryan) these last couple of weeks, we can see he really likes the tight ends and coach has been making an effort to get us involved and you could see even with some of the sets we had today,” Alie-Cox said. “Me and Jelani (Woods) were out there, Drew (Ogletree) and Jelani and even big Mike (Michael Jacobson) made a play today. It’s going to be fun.”
Alie-Cox saw a career-high 45 targets and four touchdowns in 2021. Those numbers are likely to go up in 2022 now that he’s taking on the starting role in the offense.
Over the last four seasons, the leader in the tight end room has averaged 68.5 targets per season. Some of that is skewed a bit because of Eric Ebron’s outlier season in 2018, but Alie-Cox should be used plenty in the passing game.
He’s learned from a lot of players over the last five years, but now it’s time for Alie-Cox to take a hold of the tight end room as his own.
“Had a lot of great guys to learn from and show me the way to lead a tight end room. So, just grasping this opportunity with open arms and just hit the ground running.”
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