Phil Richards

Indianapolis

In case you're counting, and T.Y. Hilton is, the Indianapolis Colts don't have one No. 1 receiver, they have three, and he's one of them.

"All you have to do is turn on the film and watch me play," Hilton said with his customary economy.

Hilton is a doer, not a talker, a little man with a propensity for the big play.

Turn on the video and watch Hilton score his 13 regular-season touchdowns; they have covered an average of 40.5 yards.

Check out the Colts' you've-got-to-be-kidding-me 45-44 wild card dismissal of the Kansas City Chiefs in 2013. It doesn't happen without Hilton: 13 catches, 224 yards and two touchdowns.

Measure him against his teammates: Hilton has accumulated 18 plays of more than 30 yards the past two seasons. The rest of the Colts have 19.

Measure him against history: Hilton has caught passes for 1,944 yards. That's a chubbier total than seven of the top 10 players on the NFL's career receiving list achieved over their first two seasons: Terrell Owens (1,456 yards), Tony Gonzalez (989), Tim Brown (733), Marvin Harrison (1,702), James Lofton (1,786), Cris Carter (845) and Henry Ellard (890).

Hilton's a fast starter, just for starters. His total is better than the player with whom he walked off the practice field Wednesday, Colts teammate Reggie Wayne, No. 11 on that list, and a 1,061-yard man over his first two years.

"That's my big brother," Hilton boasted with obvious affection and a nod toward Wayne.

Opening the playbook

The Colts thought they were getting a great return man when they traded fourth- and fifth-round draft picks to the San Francisco 49ers for the 2012 third-round selection, 92nd overall, which brought the 5-9, 178-pound Hilton to Indianapolis. It turns out they were getting one of the NFL's most dynamic young performers and fastest players, and they figure it's time to open the throttle.

"It's just a matter of getting creative," Pagano said. "It's easy to line him up and run him down the field and run go routes, crossers and things like that, but I think there's so much more that we can do with a guy like that."

Hilton flashed his big smile.

"Right side, left side, inside, outside," he said, checking off the launch points at which he expects to line up this season. "I want to do more."

Hilton closed last season with a three-game run that included 11 catches for 155 yards against Jacksonville, the aforesaid 13 receptions for 224 yards against Kansas City, then four catches for 103 yards during a divisional-round loss at New England. He will tell you he's a better, smarter, stronger player now, in his second season in offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton's offense and after another offseason with quarterback Andrew Luck.

Nor can the importance of Wayne's tutelage be overstated.

Hilton habitually sits in the front of the receivers' meeting room, Wayne in the rear. If Hilton has a question on anything, he merely glances back. The connection is automatic; Wayne will supply the answers post-meeting.

It has been that way since the start, but the character of the relationship intensified last October, when Wayne suffered a season-ending knee injury against Denver. Suddenly Hilton was Option 1, and the lone true playmaker in a wide receiver cast that included Darrius Heyward-Bey, Griff Whalen, Da'Rick Rogers and LaVon Brazil. Suddenly opponents' defensive game plans and coverages focused on Hilton.

"T.Y. is one of those guys that you don't have to tell him much," Wayne said. "One thing I told him when they were rolling coverage to him was, 'Welcome to my world.' "

Wayne's injury would require reconstructive knee surgery. It was the darkest stretch of his first 13 NFL seasons. It was the most difficult of Hilton's two, but together they toiled and triumphed.

"He ended up finishing pretty strong and for me to be a cheerleader at the time, it was one of the first times I can say I really was able to sit back and enjoy a football game," Wayne said, "through him."

By Hilton's reckoning, he and Wayne give the Colts two No. 1 receivers, and Hakeem Nicks, a free agent signed by the Colts after five years and a pair of 1,000-yard seasons with the New York Giants, supplies a third.

That imposing threesome is complemented by rookie receiver Donte Moncrief, Whalen and Rogers and versatile get-down-the-field tight ends Dwayne Allen and Coby Fleener. Hamilton is all about creating mismatches, or as he calls them, "crises," for the defense, and the many principals and capacities of the Colts' receiving corps should yield an abundance.

To wit: In their preseason opener against the New York Jets last week, the Colts got Hilton isolated on a hopelessly overmatched linebacker. Hilton turned a shallow in-route into a 21-yard gain.

Colts running back Trent Richardson doesn't see how defenses can cheat against the run by filling the box with eight or nine defenders, not like last year, not with that receiving group and Luck throwing to them. Richardson is all aboard. Everyone is.

"Exotic," Allen called the Colts' arsenal.

"Dominant. Completely beast mode," veteran Colts defensive end Cory Redding said. "We have weapons all over the field."

Standing on the gas

Harrison, whose many team receiving records Wayne is poised to break, was once asked about his best 40-yard dash time. Harrison shrugged.

"How fast are you?" his interrogator persisted.

"Fast enough," Harrison said with the brevity Hilton closely approximates.

A quadriceps injury prevented Hilton from running the 40 at the 2012 National Scouting Combine, but he would answer all the questions. Ten days later, during Florida International's pro day, Hilton ran 4.34 with the wind. Then, just to verify the clocking, achy quad be darned, he ran 4.39 into it.

A year earlier, during team timing and testing, he had run 4.24. That's not fast. That's sudden.

Legit? Hilton was asked Wednesday.

"Legit," Hilton responded.

How fast is the Colts' fastest player? Fast enough.

Again, look at the crowd with which he's running.

Hilton's 10 100-yard receiving games over the past two seasons is the NFL's sixth-best total. Stacked above him are the elite of the league's elite: Detroit's Calvin Johnson (18 games), Denver's Demaryius Thomas and Chicago's Brandon Marshall (13 each), Houston's Andre Johnson (12) and Cincinnati's A.J. Green (11).

Only two players have exceeded Hilton's five plays of 50-plus yards over the past two seasons. They are Green with seven and Minnesota running back Adrian Peterson with six. Throw in Hilton's 75-yard punt return against Buffalo in 2012 and he equals Peterson.

Hilton's receiving yardage total has been topped by a single member of his draft class: Cleveland's Josh Gordon, the first selection in the 2012 supplemental draft, has caught passes for 2,451 yards.

We're talking fast company here, and the best is almost certainly yet to come because that's all we've seen, starters, fast starters.

Email Star reporter Phil Richards at phil.richards@indystar.com and follow him on Twitter at @philrichards6.

Colts wide receiver T.Y. Hilton's two-year NFL statistics:

RECEIVING RUSHING Year GP/GS No. Yards Avg. Long TD No. Yards Avg. Long TD 2012 15/1 50 861 17.2 70T 7 5 29 5.8 19 0 2013 16/10 82 1,083 13.2 73T 5 2 6 3.0 3 0 Totals 31/11 132 1,944 14.7 73T 12 7 35 5.0 19 0 RETURNS PR FC Yards Avg. Long TD KR Yards Avg. Long TD 2012 26 18 300 11.5 75T 1 7 118 16.9 26 0 2013 17 12 159 9.4 34 0 0 0 0.0 0 0 Totals 43 30 459 10.7 75T 1 7 118 16.9 26 0

Over his two NFL seasons, Hilton ranks among the leaders in 100-yard receiving games and 50-plus-yard touchdowns. The rundown: