Colts safety Rodney Thomas II ends emotional week with rollercoaster game for Damar Hamlin

INDIANAPOLIS -- Rodney Thomas II saw the ball flying through the air in Lucas Oil Stadium, one final heave in a tumultuous season and the heaviest week of his life. Something inside him told him to jump, so he raced into position and powered off those springy legs into the sky.

But the ball hung up there, just drifting through the air, and the rookie felt his body start to drop. He threw his hands up, just like he'd imitated in practice and in the backyard all those years ago, and the ball slipped just over his fingertips and into the arms of Texans tight end Jordan Akins.

One play later, the Texans hit the two-point conversion for a 32-31 victory.

The Colts finished their season at 4-12-1 with another collapse Sunday. This one required a 4th-and-12 conversion on a pass up the left sidelines, that 4th-and-20 Hail Mary and a two-point conversion completion, in addition to so many other moments where Indianapolis failed to close it out.

But it's the play at the end that sticks with Thomas II. This year is all he knows in the NFL, and it's been a season of improbable highs and emotional lows, of matters of life and death. This is one of Damar Hamlin's best friends from their days at Pittsburgh Central Catholic High School, the one who took a photo with him after his first pro game in Buffalo in the preseason and then who drove Tuesday to see him with his eyes closed and a breathing tube in his mouth just to promise him it'll be OK.

From that moment, Sunday's game between two AFC South teams fighting for draft position became anything but meaningless.

That ball soaring over Thomas II's hands was the gut punch of a weighty week.

"I don't even know what it was," Thomas II said. "I just have to make the play. I have to be better."

As he sat at his locker and stared forward into the swirls in the wood, he felt a tap on the shoulder. It was Rodney McLeod, his fellow safety, the leader of their room. He pulled the rookie in for a hug.

"He had an excellent game, and that play doesn't define him or define his career," McLeod said.

"I know it's a lot to deal with one of your best friends in the hospital fighting for his life, though he's progressing and doing better. To turn around and have this dramatic ending and a loss is frustrating. But he should be proud, and I know his Mom will be proud of him, too, for the way he fought and showed up every day this week."

Football is America's spectacle, the entertainment gift that keeps on giving. But it steals something, too, from the men talented, fortunate and brave enough to play it. Never has that been more clear than this week, when NFL players across the country tuned into the final Monday Night Football game of the regular season and watched Hamlin's body fall limp, and their world froze together.

As the ambulance raced out and the medics started pounding on the Bills safety's chest, Thomas II jumped on a FaceTime call with his father. He begged for Hamlin to begin breathing again. He looked up how far of a drive it was to the University of Cincinnati hospital. The next day, he hopped in his car and made the 105-minute drive alone.

Their visit lasted mere minutes. Thomas II promised a few things, to Hamlin and himself, about what they'd both do again. For Hamlin, that would mean waking up, which he did in the days following their visit.

For Thomas II, it meant showing him something on Sunday.

At the end of the third quarter, Texans quarterback Davis Mills heaved a deep post ball that Thomas II tracked until he hit full extension of his 6-foot-1 frame and snared the ball with two hands before rolling to the turf by the 30-yard line.

The No. 3 on the 30 was painted a red outline, to honor Hamlin's No. 3. After Thomas II ran up the right sideline and out of bounds, he ran over to the opposite 30, placed the ball right above the red No. 3 and made a heart symbol with his fingers.

Hamlin was watching his Bills play the Patriots from the ICU bed in Cincinnati, but he saw the video on Twitter and shared it with a fingered heart emoji and the words, "Rod Dawg!"

"It means everything, but it's no surprise to me. ... There was no other option but him walking out of that hospital," Thomas II said.

The pick was Thomas II's fourth of the season, giving him the team lead. He's done it as a seventh-round rookie from Yale, defying expectations of what defensive backs like him are supposed to be able to do in a passing league run by Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow.

It makes the ending of his rookie season all the more painful and confusing to process. It also makes him human.

"I know this feels like his darkest moment, but trust me, better is ahead of him," linebacker Zaire Franklin said. "He's a young superstar. He just led our team in interceptions. ... There is nobody in the NFL that I would rather have in that situation than him.

"I know it hurts, but he’ll be stronger because of it.”

In the years to come, few will remember the impact of a missed interception in a game with no postseason implications on the line. But a few people will remember this game.

One of those just woke up in a hospital in Cincinnati. He saw a heart symbol from a friend he couldn't hear a few days before, so he sent one back, and life started to move on.

Contact Colts insider Nate Atkins at natkins@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @NateAtkins_.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts: Rodney Thomas ends long week with emotional game for Damar Hamlin