Phil Richards

Indianapolis

As a 20-year-old rookie who played only three years at the University of Mississippi, Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Donte Moncrief has many things to learn if he is to become an NFL playmaker. Freakish athleticism is not among them.

Nor is toughness. He has taken his hits. Ask his mother.

Nineta Moncrief returned from work one evening and was stopped dead as she pulled into the drive to her hilltop home. Something was on the roof of the house. Or, rather, someone was on the bike that was being ridden on the roof of the house.

It was Donte, then 8.

"When I got to him — I call him 'Tiki' — I said, 'Tiki, what are you doing?'

"He said, 'I'm going to ride my bike off the house.' "

Of course the idea didn't fly, and neither did Donte, but his zeal for adventure was unabated. As the youngest of four children and the smallest of the couple dozen cousins and friends they ran with through the woods and fields of tiny Raleigh, Miss. (pop. 1,450), the bizarre was his norm.

"I was the youngest so I had to be the dummy to do everything," the soft-spoken, yes sir, no sir, preacher's son explained. "Whatever they asked me to do, I did. I come from a small town in the country and we were always outdoors.

"We just tried to do things we saw on TV."

Those things had consequences. In the course of scarcely a month as an eighth-grader, Donte's adventures four times ended in sutures:

>> In his forehead after he jumped off his bed and crash landed. (Said mom: "He thought he could fly," a recurring delusion.)

>> In the back of his head after the basketball goal under which he was standing collapsed under the assault of an older boy.

>> In his thigh when the older boys threw one bottle into another, causing a jagged explosion that caught Donte in the line of fire again.

>> In his other thigh when he was slashed while chasing the older kids through the woods.

Nineta didn't know the rest of the story until the evening of May 9, the night Donte's friends gathered at the house and the Colts took Moncrief in the third round of the draft.

"They told me how they used to go in the woods with him, and knowing he was small, then they'd all take off running and he couldn't catch up. They'd leave him in the woods," Mom said.

"I said, 'Bless his heart. He can't help being like he is (now). They did him so bad.' "

Big man, big promise

How he is now is 6-2, 221 pounds. Moncrief is bigger than all those kids who used to be bigger than him, and he's faster. He created considerable buzz when he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.4 seconds flat at the NFL Scouting Combine.

That was his "official" time. He ran 4.35 for his first 40.

Moncrief's 4.4 was the eighth-fastest time posted and the third-best by a wide receiver. His 39½-inch vertical jump was 10th-best overall, No. 3 among receivers. His 11-foot standing broad jump ranked No. 3 and topped all receivers.

It was an extraordinarily explosive workout for a man so large. Baylor's Tevin Reese equaled Moncrief's broad jump, was No. 1 among receivers with a 41-inch vertical jump and No. 13 with a 4.46 40. Reese is 5-10, 163.

Rotoworld, an online sports website, took receivers' 40 times, broad jumps and vertical jumps as recorded at the combine and figured in their heights and weights. The idea was to develop a metric assessing athleticism with size.

Moncrief was right there with the five best since 1999: Calvin Johnson, Vincent Jackson, Stephen Hill, Julio Jones and Andre Johnson. All but Hill are Pro Bowl receivers.

"In my opinion, the Colts got a steal," said Grant Heard, Moncrief's position coach at Ole Miss. "I think they got a first-round talent for a third-round draft pick."

Some think the rare combination of size, get-deep speed and volatile athleticism can one day make Moncrief a No. 1 receiver.

He ranks third in Ole Miss History in receptions (156), receiving yards (2,371) and receiving touchdowns (20). Those are imposing numbers for a player who passed on his senior season but Moncrief's junior year (59 catches, 938 yards, six touchdowns) were a slight regression from his breakout sophomore season: 66 receptions, 979 yards, 10 TDs.

Where was the expected improvement? Why didn't he dominate with such size and spectacular athleticism?

Defenses did whatever was required to take him away, said Heard, and others stepped up and became options. Laquon Treadwell was one of the latter. He caught 72 passes for 608 yards and five touchdowns. League coaches voted him Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Year.

Moncrief, Heard said, was quality over quantity in college football's toughest conference. Moncrief averaged 15.9 yards a reception last season, 15.2 for his career. Thirteen of his last 16 touchdown catches covered 20 yards or more.

And Bo Wallace was throwing them, not Andrew Luck. Wallace's 3,346 passing yards ranked second in the SEC to Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel (4,114) of Texas A&M last year but Wallace's quarterback rating was the league's ninth best, 138.1.

Wallace threw 40 touchdown passes over the past two years. He also threw 27 interceptions.

Luck is bullish on Moncrief.

"He's a great teammate, off the field awesome person, on the field smooth and big," the Colts' precocious third-year quarterback volunteered. "Great catching radius. You feel like you can put the ball up there and have a lot of confidence the guy will go up and make a play."

Moncrief's wingspan is 777/ 8 inches. That stamps him as ideal for back-shoulder throws and red zone jump-balls.

Making the grade

Of course size and freakish measurables don't necessarily translate into playmaking. The Colts' 2013 rent-a-receiver was Exhibit A.

Darrius Heyward-Bey stands 6-2, 219. He ran 4.3-flat at the 2009 combine. He just couldn't catch. Heyward-Bey started 11 games before the Colts benched him last season. He caught 29 passes. His one-year contract was not renewed. He's a journeyman hopeful now with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Moncrief is the youngest player on the Colts' 90-man roster. He is raw. He spent his offseason — the conditioning program, organized team activities and minicamps — focused on two things: Coming out of his breaks hard and sharp, and locking in on the football, or as Colts offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton said, "attacking" it.

The reason for the former is evident in a video at phillymag.com. The Rebels went to Moncrief in the end zone on consecutive plays against Missouri. Either play could have been a touchdown. Both probably should have been touchdowns. Moncrief could secure neither perfectly thrown pass.

So there are gains to be made. Effort should be no problem.

"He wants to be great. He came to practice every day and worked to be the best," Heard said. "He was the leader in our (receivers) room. He didn't talk. He did it by example."

The Colts see the same thing.

"He's a worker and he doesn't say much," Colts general manager Ryan Grigson observed.

"He's been working is butt off …" Hamilton affirmed.

His time to go

Moncrief might have been a first-round pick had he waited a year but his decision was made early, and it was easy.

His father, Spencer Moncrief, in his day a standout running back who earned a scholarship at Southern Illinois, had to leave his job at the Georgia Pacific particleboard plant in Taylorsville when he was afflicted by a bone disease Donte's freshman year at Ole Miss.

Spencer is well enough to preach at Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church, where he has been pastor for 15 years, but he still can't work. That, and Donte's daughter, Maylana, whose first birthday is July 16, are the reasons Moncrief entered the draft early.

It paid off with a four-year, $2.476 million contract that included a $539,800 signing bonus. That secured Maylana, who lives with her mother and is the doting favorite of her father, and allowed Nineta to quit her job as a regional merchandiser for Winn-Dixie supermarkets to stay home to care for her husband.

Of course adversity isn't new to Moncrief. Recall his youth. It was fun, but it was a succession of stitches, bruises and painful misadventures, like his broken leg.

It happened at a pee wee football game when Moncrief was in sixth grade, and no, not during the game, after.

"I was chasing one of my friends," Moncrief said. "I didn't see a barbeque grill. I ran straight into it."

Of course he did.

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