In the second quarter of Sunday’s game between the Indianapolis Colts and the Pittsburgh Steelers at Lucas Oil Stadium, second-year Steelers’ tight end Darnell Washington put together a rather jaw-dropping display of strength and athleticism.
On a 20-yard catch-and-run, Washington stiff-armed Colts’ linebacker E.J. Speed to the turf. He then hurdled Colts’ safety Nick Cross, putting himself onto SportsCenter and making highlight reels across the social media landscape in the days ahead.
Though Speed wasn’t on the wrong end of the hurdle from the 6-foot-7, 265-pound Darnell Washington, he was on the wrong end of a mean stiff-arm that sent him tumbling to the turf.
Appearing on “The Trenches Show” with fellow Colts linebacker Zaire Franklin, who addressed the Najee Harris situation further in the same show, Speed said that throughout the week leading up to the matchup against the Steelers, there was no talk about Darnell Washington being that strong or that athletic, having a hurdle in his repertoire.
So when he broke it out on Sunday, all the Colts defenders were surprised.
“That’s the thing, bro. You put me on the SportsCenter. So I go out, I wrap my hands, grabbed his pads. I said, ‘Oh, we good, let’s go to the ground. Uh-uh. Uh-uh! That boy extended that extra [stiff-arm]. I dropped, bro kept going. Now, what I can say is, if he didn’t hurdle it, don’t get posted. He supposed to stay on the ground and step out of bounds and live to play another down, but he hurdled. So now, you dig, it’s a whole situation. I’m gonna keep it G: we didn’t talk about him having that in his bag all week, bro,” Speed said of Washington’s stiff-arm and hurdle, according to video via the show’s YouTube page. “That wasn’t something that the coaches had at the tackling plan. …They ain’t say he had the stiff arm and the hurdle.”
“A hundred percent. That wasn’t no bro scout before. It wasn’t,” Franklin added of Darnell Washington. “he ain’t say he had the stiff-arm and the hurdle.”
Well, it is now, and Speed found out first-hand.
It was a rather remarkable play from Darnell Washington that was stunning.
Maybe it shouldn’t be because Washington was a freak athlete for his size coming out of Georgia and had some of those plays on tape during his time with the Bulldogs.
As a rookie in the NFL, though, Darnell Washington never had a chance to display that because he was largely relegated to a blocking tight end role. When he did run routes and serve as a pass-catching threat, he was primarily on short routes that didn’t allow him to really do anything after the catch.
Now, though, with Arthur Smith in the fold as the offensive coordinator, he’s starting to get more work as a pass catcher. The offense is scheming things up to get him into advantageous matchups in the red zone and in the flat against smaller defenders, letting him go to work.
Darnell Washington’s hurdle was remarkable and put to rest some of the talks that he’s nothing more than a sixth offensive lineman. He’s a freak athlete for a reason. He just needs more opportunities to display it.
It’ll definitely be in the scouting report moving forward now, too.
