'I don’t like to think too much': Matt Gay shows why Colts paid him like Justin Tucker

BALTIMORE — Matt Gay can’t tell you much about the kicks he made Sunday, one of the greatest days any kicker has put together in the history of the NFL.

Gay doesn’t have any insight into the snap, the hold. Can’t remember if he heard the crowd, if he felt the pressure of the situation.

If he knows the distances, if he realizes he’s the first kicker in NFL history to make four field goals from 50 yards or more in a single game, it’s only because he’s been given a game ball, because his teammates are chanting his name on his way to the interview room, because people keep telling him.

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Gay’s mind was blacked out, gone to a place of pure kicking zen, as he punched one through from 31 yards early, from 53 and 54 in the second half, from 53 to send the game into overtime and then from 53 again to hand the Colts an unlikely 22-19 upset over the Ravens on a day when the Indianapolis offense struggled to string drives together.

“In that blackout mode, you just jog on, kick it and jog off,” Gay said. “That’s the mindset I like to have. I don’t like to think too much about what’s going on, think too much about anything. Thoughts can come in and get you off, as opposed to just being in the moment, being unconscious.”

The Colts haven’t had a kicker like Gay in half a decade, not since age caught up with Adam Vinatieri. For years, Indianapolis kept making mistakes at the position: first by holding on to Vinatieri too long, then by handing the job to Rodrigo Blankenship, then sticking with Blankenship through injury, his inability to kick from long range and a penchant for missing when the game was sitting on his foot.

Indianapolis finally made a move to atone for its kicking sins this offseason.

The Colts handed out a four-year, $22.5 million deal, the second-biggest contract for any kicker in the NFL, to steal Gay away from the Los Angeles Rams, a play that echoed the franchise’s big move to sign Vinatieri more than a decade ago.

“People underestimate the power of the kicking game,” Indianapolis linebacker Zaire Franklin said.

Not in Baltimore.

When Gay emerged from the locker room to warm up before Sunday’s game, he trotted out to the Indianapolis half of the field to greet Ravens kicker Justin Tucker, the highest-paid kicker in the NFL — Tucker averages $6 million per year, a tick higher than Gay’s $5.5 million average — and a player the rest of the league reveres.

“I mean, he’s arguably the greatest of all time,” Gay said.

Kickers often warm up before the rest of their teammates put on their uniforms, and Gay always makes it a point to talk to his opposite on the other team, to ask him how he’s doing, how he’s hitting the ball.

Except for Tucker.

That conversation was different.

“Telling him I respect him, nothing but respect for him and his game and what he’s done,” Gay said. “He was kind enough to congratulate me on the deal here and coming to Indy.”

But it’s still Tucker’s field, and Tucker always warms up in the east end zone at M&T Bank Stadium, even though he was surrounded by Colts.

Gay took the hint and headed into enemy territory to get his pregame routine going.

“He’s got his routine,” Gay said. “I didn’t want to bother him. I wanted to make sure we had our space to work out and do our thing.”

Tropical Storm Ophelia rolled through the Baltimore area Saturday, and Gay had spent the week worrying about the conditions, the rain and wind that can be devastating to kickers.

There was nothing to worry about. The Ravens kept the field tarped until two hours before game time, the rain mostly stayed away after it came off the field and Gay found himself on a good kicking surface, little wind and little wetness.

And the moment the game began, Gay stopped thinking about Tucker.

Even when the two kickers began to battle, Tucker answering Gay’s 54-yarder to take the lead with a 50-yarder of his own to take it back.

Even when Tucker blinked first by falling short on a potential game-winner from 61 yards, a kick that would have seemed superhuman for any other kicker but seemed like almost a given, considering how many times Tucker has hit kicks like it in the past.

Tucker’s miss sent the game into overtime.

Gay trotted out onto the field. There is a little time between the end of regulation and the start of overtime, a dead period on the field, and Gay spent it sending another kick through the uprights.

The Colts kicker couldn’t say why he did it after the game. Gay hasn’t kicked in a lot of overtime periods in his career, and he wasn’t thinking about the pressure of the moment.

There is no pressure in blackout mode.

Gay simply wanted to stay in that head space.

“I try to be in it as much as I possibly can,” Gay said. “There are certain streaks, certain things you go on when you look back, you’re like, ‘I was in that mode, for sure.’ I try to be in that mode as frequently as possible. I try to stay in that mode in practice, in games.”

When he trotted out for the game-winner, Gay couldn’t feel the pressure.

Couldn’t feel anything, if he’s being honest.

“For me, it’s like, I couldn’t tell you what happened,” Gay said. “I don’t remember the snap, the hold. The snap goes, then I go, I’m looking up and I see the ball. For me, that’s a good sign when I’m not thinking about anything, I’m just back there kicking. It means I’m fluid, I’m just going, reacting.”

Even after the kick went through, handing the Colts a win few predicted them to get.

His holder, Colts punter Rigoberto Sanchez, erupted in celebration, and Gay was still locked into the moment, even as his teammates surrounded him, erupting in joy.

“The way he kept it cool was amazing. Being a part of it was even better,” Sanchez said. “He’s a complete beast.”

The kind of beast the Colts haven’t had since Vinatieri.

The kind of beast worth paying for.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts vs. Ravens: Matt Gay shows why Colts paid him like Justin Tucker