How a moment with Rock Ya-Sin inspired Isaiah Rodgers to play his best game with the Colts

INDIANAPOLIS -- If you want to know how Isaiah Rodgers did what he did on Christmas, making plays in coverage late to hold off a Kyler Murray comeback, let's start with a play he didn't make the week before.

Seven days before the Colts' second-year player out of UMass stepped into the starting lineup to replace Rock Ya-Sin, he had a moment with him.

Rodgers was lined up over New England Patriots receiver N'Keal Harry, a 6-foot-4 former first-round pick with half a foot on the 5-10 Rodgers.

Harry drove Rodgers vertically, pushing outside and drifting inside before extending that frame above Rodgers' head to pull down a 43-yard pass from Mac Jones.

As Rodgers jumped back up, he felt a shove on his left shoulder. He turned around to find Ya-Sin.

"Keep your head up! Next play!” Ya-Sin yelled.

Ya-Sin is one of the quieter players on the Colts, but he knows what it's like to live in fear of the deep ball. He was the most penalized cornerback in the league in 2019.

"This year, I’m just not worried about getting beat," Ya-Sin said.

Ya-Sin has launched a career year with that mentality, becoming one of the least-targeted cornerbacks in the game. Having gone to those depths allowed him to see it in someone else.

Rodgers hasn't always hid those frustrations, but the Colts needed the best of him now.

Two plays later on that drive against the Patriots, Rodgers lined up on Harry again in man coverage. Harry gave a hard step outside to gain inside leverage, but Rodgers used his kick-returner speed to catch up. So Harry tried to flip the route back to the corner of the end zone, where he'd have Rodgers on an island, just like the Patriots drew it up.

But this time, Rodgers met Harry in the chest before flipping his hips to run the route for him. The ball flew to the corner, but Harry came nowhere near it, and the Colts went on to win.

All Rodgers could think about in the coming plays, hours and days was that shove from Ya-Sin. He thanked him on the sideline after the drive and then after the game and then the next week.

"It was huge," Rodgers said. "Coming back to my phone after the game, everyone back home knew that that play meant a lot to me. I don’t like plays like that happening on me.”

It stayed with him when the news hit just a few days later: Ya-Sin tested positive for COVID-19 and would miss the trip to play the Arizona Cardinals. That meant Rodgers was starting on Christmas night on national TV.

"That was another moment where I have to fill that gap," Rodgers said.

Rodgers can't help but feel the moment coming. He's been waiting all his life. From begging his high school coaches to let him play defensive back to hoping Power-5 schools would notice him to hosting his own Pro Day so anyone in the NFL could realize his 4.28-second speed; he's always been that shorter kid who wasn't taken seriously in coverage.

The Colts drafted him in the sixth round to start out as a kick returner, and he did that admirably as a rookie, scoring a 101-yard touchdown against the Cleveland Browns. But he only played 6% of the defensive snaps, and he entered this season as a distant No. 4 cornerback behind Xavier Rhodes, Kenny Moore II and Ya-Sin.

“They’re always telling me my time is going to come," Rodgers said.

That's because some of them have had to wait. Rhodes was the exception, going from Florida State to the first round of the draft. But Ya-Sin played at Presbyterian before he transferred to Temple. Moore II went undrafted out of Valdosta State and nearly quit football as a rookie, convinced he wasn't big enough to handle these grown men.

“There’s always that self-doubt of, ‘What if I can’t do this?’ Or, ‘What if I can do this?’" Moore II said. "It’s always this back-and-forth subconscious that you have with yourself.”

Moore II's ascension, from cut by the Patriots to a Pro Bowler with the Colts, has trickled down to Ya-Sin and now to Rodgers. It was never about feeling invincible. It's about never getting lower than they've already been pegged.

Their gift is in their response.

"We've been overlooked our entire lives," said Rodgers, who has two interceptions while playing 44% of defensive snaps. "When we go out there as a unit, our main goal is to showcase our skills and our ability for the entire world to see, to let everyone know before us that they missed out on something."

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Against the Cardinals, in his second start of his career, Rodgers was again in man coverage on the outside receiver. Antoine Wesley gained an outside release up the left sideline, and though Rodgers recovered enough to place an arm in the catch radius, Murray threw a perfect pass beyond his reach for a touchdown.

The Cardinals led 13-12 in the third quarter. Ya-Sin wasn't there to shove him in the back this time. The memory would have to do.

On Arizona's final drive, once the Colts built a 22-13 lead and Murray was in comeback mode, the Cardinals' scrambling quarterback dialed up the idea that worked before. He threw to Wesley with Rodgers in man coverage in the same corner of the end zone.

This time, Rodgers turned around in time to see the ball float through the air. He timed his jump as it arrived, lifting that 5-10 body as high as it could elevate, and by the time it got over his finger tips and to where Wesley could grab it, the receiver was out of bounds.

It was the final pass Murray threw in the Colts' 22-16 win.

"That’s who Isaiah Rodgers is. He’s a guy that responds, that loves the competition, that has the ability to step in, rather than step up," Colts defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus said.

The Colts see it in him. Ya-Sin decided to show it to him.

And now Rodgers isn't searching for it anymore.

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

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts: How Rock-Ya Sin inspired Isaiah Rodgers to play his best game