Gregg Doyel

gregg.doyel@indystar.com

ANDERSON – He’s talking so softly, I can barely hear him. He’s 6-4 and 317 pounds, he plays defensive tackle in the NFL, and he’s almost whispering.

So I look at Indianapolis Colts rookie Hassan Ridgeway and ask him: Is it possible you’re too nice, too gentle, to play in the NFL?

Ridgeway smiles pleasantly.

“Football’s where I let everything out,” he says.

This raises a question: What are you letting out? What have you been holding in?

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“That’s a vague question — you have to ask me something specific,” he says, and now I’m reminded that Ridgeway, this gentle giant of a defensive tackle, made the Big 12 Commissioner’s Honor Roll at Texas. He studied social work. Like most defensive tackles, probably.

But he wants a more specific question, so here it comes: Name one thing that fuels you, Hassan, one thing you let out when it’s time to play football.

“People that don’t believe in you,” he says.

That’s a vague answer, I say, and now I’m the one smiling pleasantly.

Ridgeway is not.

“People have said, ‘You won’t make it to the NFL,’ ” he says. “I’ve heard it a lot. You hold that in, and you wait to use that.”

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He’s a lump of clay, this guy. He didn’t start playing football until his freshman year of high school, and then only because it’s what his friends were doing. Ridgeway grew up in California and moved to Mansfield, Texas, at 14. He was a basketball player, but the crowd he fell into played football.

“I wanted to be with my friends,” he says.

Wouldn’t you know it? Ridgeway was a natural at football, better than his friends, better than almost everybody in the football-rich state of Texas. He was all-state, he was All-American, and then he was signing with the University of Texas. Ridgeway was a defensive end in those days, long and lean at 6-4 and 235 pounds, but Texas beefed him up and moved him to defensive tackle as a redshirt freshman.

Three years later, he was the Colts’ fourth-round draft pick in 2016.

And he’s going to be good, this gentle, soft-speaking lump of clay. He’s still raw, still prone to lose track of the ball while he’s taking on his blocker, but here’s the thing the Colts noticed when they studied his film at Texas: He almost always beat his blocker.

Knowing where the ball is? The Colts can teach him that. Shoving a blocker out of the way — or juking him so badly that Ridgeway blows past, untouched? Nobody can teach that.

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As fate would have it, the Colts have a need for Hassan Ridgeway right now. The top two players on the defensive line, Henry Anderson and Art Jones, are unavailable. Jones is suspended for the first four regular-season games. Anderson is expected back sooner, but his return date from knee surgery is unknown.

And there sits Hassan Ridgeway, younger and more athletic than anyone else on the defensive front, but so inexperienced. His production during the exhibition season will dictate how much playing time he gets as a rookie — the Colts open the preseason Sunday against Green Bay in Canton, Ohio — but Ridgeway finds himself down the depth chart.

I asked another Colts defensive lineman, Kelcy Quarles, about the rookie from Texas. The question, as I recall it: Is Hassan Ridgeway a finished product?

Quarles made a face.

“He’s not finished,” Quarles said. “That guy’s ceiling is through the roof. I feel he’ll be one of those guys who ends up being in the Pro Bowl someday.”

The Pro … what?

“His ceiling,” Quarles said again, “is through the roof.”

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So are his expectations. Ridgeway decided the NFL was his goal after one season of high school football. Now that he’s here, he has set his goals higher.

“I want to be the best that I can be, personally,” he says. “Every single goal starts out with me being the best in the room and getting respect from my teammates and learning the game. It’s not going to all come and happen overnight. There are small goals that keep on evolving every day. Then it’s on to the next one.”

Ridgeway has some Henry Anderson in him, meaning he projects as someone who will be able to play anywhere on the front of the Colts’ 3-4 defense. That kind of versatility requires strength, size and explosion — and Ridgeway has all three in a way matched on this roster only by Anderson.

Colts coach Chuck Pagano concedes Ridgeway “has a lot to learn,” but calls him “a big, strong guy” who can play all three downs because he is both stout against the run and able to affect the pocket.

Playing time is available. Patience in professional football is limited. Ridgeway is aware.

“Nobody’s going to push me harder than I push myself, or put any pressure on me that I don’t already put on myself.”

That’s what he said. Or it’s what I think he said. He doesn’t say much, this guy, and he doesn’t say it very loudly. But Hassan Ridgeway is built like a defensive tackle and moves more like a defensive end. His future is loud. His future is very loud.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.