Phillip Lindsay is doing something completely unprecedented, and it has nothing to do with his stats

CINCINNATI — It was the first day of Denver Broncos OTAs, and the first team meeting in which all of the rookies and veterans were in the same place. Head coach Vance Joseph ordered each of the new faces to stand up to state their name, where they’re from and where they went to college.

Phillip Lindsay, all 5-foot-8 and 190 pounds of him, admits he was a bit nervous.

As he stood up out of his chair, not gaining much height, he delivered his message, a message that’s integral to his identity.

“My name is Phillip Lindsay, I’m from Colorado, and I went to Colorado,” remembers Domata Peko with a big laugh, imitating Lindsay’s high and raspy voice.

“Everybody started laughing,” Lindsay added to the memory with a touch of embarrassment and a laugh of his own. “Here’s this little-ass dude.”

“I just will never forget that,” Peko concluded, hardly containing his laughter. “That shit is stuck in my head forever.”

Little did they know, they wouldn’t be the ones laughing for long.

As soon as they took to the field, Lindsay, as he always does, started turning heads, literally and figuratively.

“He was wearing No. 2, and all the guys were like, ‘Who the hell is this No. 2 making all these plays on us, man!'” Peko recalls.

It was the kid from Colorado. They were blown away.

On the first day of training camp, after Lindsay smoked Brandon Marshall for a long touchdown catch, Von Miller essentially sharpied his name on the 53-man roster. In the first preseason game, he scored a 19-yard touchdown. In the first regular-season game, he scored a 29-yard touchdown.

He. Just. Keeps. Getting. Better.

On Sunday, that “little-ass dude” went for a career-high 157 yards on 19 carries. He added two touchdowns, including a 65-yarder in which he left all 21 other players on the field in the dust. He now finds himself just 63 yards short of 1,000 on the year.

The Lindsay love fest has become standard operating procedure in the Broncos locker room following each game. Heck, when asked about him at the podium on Sunday, quarterback Case Keenum fumbled over his words for about three seconds before declaring, “I don’t even know what else to say about him.”

But after his latest jaw-dropping performance, the tone surrounding him in that locker room took a turn, and that tone may be Lindsay’s greatest accomplishment to date.

The undersized, unheralded, undrafted rookie has become a leader of the Denver Broncos. The undersized, unheralded, undrafted rookie is the heart and soul of the Denver Broncos offense.

“He brings the juice that we need,” Garett Bolles told BSN Denver. “We need him every day to bring the juice. It picks us up and makes us excited to go to work and makes us excited to make blocks for him… We need guys like that. When I came in here last year, we needed dogs, and he’s a dog.”

“I always tell everybody, I don’t expect anything else from that guy because he works his ass off. I think you could ask anybody in this locker room, vets all the way down to rookies, we all know that that dude puts it all on the line and he works his ass off,” added Courtland Sutton. “You see a guy who’s out here working his butt off and trying to be the best he can be, it makes all of us want to go out and push ourselves to bring value to the team. No matter what it is, whether it’s something that goes unnoticed or unrecognized to being like Phil and having 100-yard rushing games and getting Pro Bowl votes as a rookie… Anything that you want from the dude, he does it.”

Everything Phillip Lindsay is doing is rare and unique, but this? This is special. This is what separates him from just being a great player.

It’s very unusual for any rookie to become a real leader on a team. It’s entirely unheard of for an undrafted rookie to do it. Heck, when the Colorado kid walked into Denver Broncos headquarters, even he knew he wasn’t supposed to be a leader.

“I have to get in where I fit in, and right now that’s learning and listening and being quiet,” he said on day one. “That’s not my place right now. My place is to listen to the veterans and listen to the coaches, take what they want and establish it on the football field.”

It’s fair to say he’s established it on the football field, but in the process, the real Phillip Lindsay has shined through, it’s just not something he can hold back, and the way that guy operates is contagious.

You just don’t come across players who attack the game with such passion and intensity, guys who truly give everything they have to the game day in and day out. It’s why those who watched him play at Colorado or even Denver South before that were so convinced he would have success at the NFL level. It’s why his teammates and coaches were pissed off that he wasn’t invited to the NFL combine and later wasn’t drafted. It’s why it only took 12 weeks for his spirit to be etched into the Denver Broncos’ identity.

On Sunday, after his career day, head coach Vance Joseph presented one game ball to Lindsay and the offensive line, but Lindsay refused to accept it.

“That’s all you guys,” he said, gesturing towards his line.

“I don’t like the attention. It’s not about me, it’s about the team,” he said later. “My family taught me that it’s not about none of us, it’s about all of us together, we work as a unit.”

“That’s the kind of guy I want around,” Keenum said of the moment. “He’s a special dude.”

As it stands, Phillip Lindsay isn’t even allowed to sit on the couch in the Denver Broncos locker room. Rules are rules, and he’s still a rookie. Meanwhile, the Broncos offense has found a comfortable place to sit right on Lindsay’s shoulders, and the little guy with the raspy voice is carrying them with ease.