The Colts now have a pair of work-in-progress basketball-players-turned-tight-ends, even if one of them is farther along than the other. The veteran (relatively speaking) has experienced nostalgia upon the arrival of the newbie.
“Mo [Alie-Cox] just getting into the building, seeing another basketball guy, seeing the hardships that he has yet to come that he’s not even aware of,” tight end Erik Swoope told reporters on Tuesday. “These past couple days, they’ve made me think about exactly what your question was how far I’ve come along. Everything -- thinking about training camp, not knowing how to put on my shoulder pads, getting used to a helmet; to now, having played 16 games going into another season hoping to just grow from that. It’s exciting. It makes me want to continue to work hard and see what’s in store.”
Although Jack Doyle became the focal point of the team’s tight end position after the Colts traded Dwayne Allen to the Patriots, Swoope got plenty of attention, because he’s the guy who’ll experience the biggest increase in his role.
“Still have a very long way to go,” Swoope said. “I got my feet wet, but I still, watching myself on tape -- I got a long way to go.”
He’s nevertheless come far enough that basketball has exited the equation altogether.
“Yeah, no one would be believe me, but during my first year felt like a distant memory,” Swoope said. “There’s so much to this game, and I think right off the bat I got very excited about the possibilities. So the moment I left college, to me, basketball was gone. I wasn’t on the fence. I wasn’t in training camp thinking, if this [doesn’t work out], oh maybe I’ll go back. No, it was football.”
It’s now football for Alie-Cox, and if both Swoope and Alie-Cox develop, Dwayne Allen and Coby Fleener will become memories as distant as Dallas Clark and Marcus Pollard.