Source: Adam Bettcher / Getty
INDIANAPOLIS – He might be the most polarizing Colts player in 2024.
Bring up the name Jelani Woods and fans reactions will be all over.
Tight end freak!
Bust!
Most curious Colt on the roster!
That’s what happens when one of the most unique sized tight ends shows late-season rookie promise before missing his entire second season due to hamstring injuries.
Woods swears his health is in a far better state than it was last season.
And he’s backed that up with some evidence this spring.
It was a long time ago, but Woods was offering some rookie hope late in that 2022 season to forget.
But a spring hamstring issue led to constant starts and stops for Woods. He thought his return was actually going to happen just before the Colts headed to Germany for the November meeting with the Patriots. But then Woods had a setback, this time with his opposite hamstring.
A trip to Los Angeles to see a hamstring specialist was next up for Woods and that appears to have helped him greatly after how he looked this spring.
“I just felt way better, 10 times better all through the offseason,” Woods said in late May.
“My rookie year I could tell I was limited in certain stuff, planting and everything like that. Now I feel that I’m getting out of my breaks much faster. I feel like I have more of a receiver dynamic than a true big tight end. I feel like I’m looser in some areas and can do more than I did my rookie year.”
Back in 2022, it took Woods some time to impact.
He caught 8 balls for 98 yards in a Monday night game against the Steelers, but the Jeff Saturday-led staff barely played Woods above a dozen snaps each of the next two weeks, following his breakout performance.
Many had Woods pegged as a potential ascending candidate with the tight end centric Shane Steichen arriving in 2023.
But, obviously, that never happened.
So now Woods enters Year 3 of a 4-year rookie contract with many in a camp of intrigue, and some in a camp of skepticism.
Will Woods emerge from a tight end room looking for someone to do just that?
“Coming off the injury, taking care of (Woods’) body has been awesome,” Steichen says of the former third-round pick. “But to see him out here going with the guys, he’s been making a ton of plays. A big-body tight end that can run the vertical routes, run the shallows, run the deep cross. It’s awesome to see.
“Obviously, he’s a matchup for a defense that they have to be prepared for. So, it’s been good to see.”
