Mo Alie-Cox Making Route Running Strides For Colts

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INDIANAPOLIS – It’s early, but Mo Alie-Cox is doing exactly what a young guy should be doing this time of year.

With off-season surgeries currently shelving starting tight ends Jack Doyle and Eric Ebron, the Colts have turned to Alie-Cox to run with the first team.

And the former basketball player is impressing.

“I am really excited about Mo’s development because I really think he is really starting to develop as a route runner,” Frank Reich said following the first OTA session of the spring. “We know he has good hands but last year I thought he struggled a little bit in his route running and he was just very average. I have already seen in three weeks of Phase Two some really key indicators to me, very tangible indicators that he can develop into a very good route runner as well.

“He is so long and big and they don’t want to tackle him.”

All of that was seen on Tuesday, during the first open OTA session of 2019, when Alie-Cox showed off more of a complete route tree, especially on underneath routes.

Alie-Cox was clearly the top tight end during practice and Jacoby Brissett peppered him with balls during full team sessions.

Last year, 11 Colts caught more passes than Alie-Cox (who had 7 catches for 133 yards in 2018), but no one had a higher yards per catch number, at 19.0. You saw definite moments of potential.

As an undrafted free agent in 2017, Alie-Cox was coming to the professional football ranks after playing college basketball at VCU.

Given Alie-Cox’s 6-5 and 267-pound frame, the Colts saw the blocking aspect in the young tight end’s game early on.

“Mentally, we all know Mo is a smart guy, but that’s a really hard position to play,” Reich says. “Things happen really fast. Mo, from the start, was physically good enough but how fast can you see the game? Can you play with what we call accelerated vision and see things and have the game slow down?

“And Mo has really shown that.”

Even last year, the Colts were high on Alie-Cox offering a versatile tight end option, which was needed after Jack Doyle went down in November with a season-ending injury.

The Colts had a better rushing output with Alie-Cox in the lineup, and he even out-snapped Eric Ebron in games last year.

For 2019, the role for Alie-Cox is still a little cloudy, once Ebron and Doyle return to full health. Remember, Alie-Cox only has 9 games of NFL experience and 7 career catches.

But with both of those vets in contract years, the Colts could very well bank on the potential of Alie-Cox, 25, next spring and beyond.

“Man, I am so excited about that guy,” Reich says. “He is headed in the right direction.”