INDIANAPOLIS — Just prior to the Washington Commanders’ final drive, Grant Prather snuck his way down the rows of Lucas Oil Stadium to find a seat right behind the team’s bench. He had to get his friend’s attention. Terry McLaurin looked back when he heard his childhood buddy calling out.
Prather, wearing a McLaurin-branded hoodie that read “Us versus them” across the front, told the wide receiver to go win the game. Growing up here together, the 26-year-old had seen McLaurin make plenty of big plays in this very stadium — from high school to college.
And it was time to do so again.
“He said, ‘I got you,’” Prather said. “You saw what happened after that.”
To fuel the Commanders’ 17-16 victory over the Indianapolis Colts, McLaurin hauled in a dramatic 33-yard pass from quarterback Taylor Heinicke at the 1-yard line with 26 seconds left. Heinicke then punched in the touchdown on the following play, paving the way for Washington’s third straight victory to improve to 4-4.
The victory almost didn’t happen. Indianapolis clawed back in the second half to take a six-point lead and Washington was backed up all the way to its 11-yard line with 2:39 left when Heinicke and company took over. But in just nine plays — none more spectacular than McLaurin’s catch — the quarterback led the Commanders down the field.
But it was McLaurin’s haul that truly made the difference. The 27-year-old was given a three-year, $71 million contract extension in the offseason for moments like these — moments that he had delivered before and moments that coach Ron Rivera and Co. were confident he could produce again.
Even by McLaurin’s standards, his catch Sunday was special. As the pass flew in, McLaurin, last year’s leader in contested catches, wrestled the ball away from cornerback Stephon Gilmore — ensuring that it wasn’t an interception. And to get open, McLaurin first ran a hitch before quickly turning around to create just enough room.
After McLaurin secured the catch, he propped up to yell “this is my city! This is my city!” And who would tell him otherwise? He finished the evening with six catches for 113 yards in his first game back in his hometown.
“Your family, your friends, they think you’re going to make every single play,” said McLaurin, who gave out about 70 tickets to watch him. “They think you’re just going to run off into the sunset and you just don’t know how it’s going to come up.
“To be able to make that play and look back and see how hard they were going for me … man, I’m just so humbled and thankful.”
In the bowels of the stadium afterward, Prather and a group of McLaurin’s friends urged reporters to “make sure the record shows the Colts could have drafted him.” And that’s true. The Commanders took McLaurin 76th overall in the 2019 draft, while the Colts used the 59th selection to draft Parris Campbell — coincidentally McLaurin’s former college teammate and roommate.
Days before Sunday’s contest, McLaurin told reporters that he had no hard feelings over the Colts’ passing on him. Sure, he envisioned the possibility — his parents had season tickets in section 540 and would take McLaurin to Colts games — but McLaurin said he was happy for Campbell. The Commanders, he said, ended up being the place where he needed to be.
And it wasn’t just the Colts on passed on McLaurin, who was seen by scouts as a player who could perhaps be a special teams ace but lacked the overall production to be a big-time player. The Packers, for instance, didn’t draft the wide receiver — and McLaurin helped seal last week’s win against Green Bay with a tough catch on third-and-9.
In four years, McLaurin hasn’t just been a player who overcame his scouting profile. He’s become a captain — a face of a franchise. The Commanders didn’t just pay McLaurin for his talent, but also because of what he means to a fan base that has lacked true stars in recent years.
“Who he is as a young man, you’re impressed by who he is,” Rivera said. “And that’s important.”
“This organization had championships and were selling out the stadium at one time,” McLaurin said. “I just want to be a part of trying to get that ship righted and get us right back to where we need to be.”
The Commanders may still be far away from re-capturing that past glory, though their three-game winning streak has now kept them in the hunt for a playoff spot in the NFC. Near the halfway point of the season, Washington is in a much better position than it was a few weeks ago.
The Commanders have done it with a defense that’s dramatically improved over the season and a quarterback in Heinicke that’s filling in for Carson Wentz, Washington’s starter who has missed the last two games with a fractured finger. The defense held the Colts, who started 2021 sixth-rounder Sam Ehlinger at quarterback over veteran Matt Ryan, to 324 yards. Heinicke threw for 279, a touchdown and an interception.
But on Sunday, they especially wouldn’t be in this position without McLaurin. Before the game, Hall of Fame receiver Marvin Harrison approached McLaurin and asked him to take a picture together. McLaurin, recalling the interaction, said he had to make sure he heard him right. Was the receiver he dressed up as for Halloween — for two years in a row — really asking him for a photo?
McLaurin called it a “full circle” moment.
“We always knew how talented he was, what he had in store,” Prather said. “But to see him do this, in our stadium — we used to go to Colts games together — and to see him do this against the Colts … you can’t believe it, man. Nobody deserves it more than him.”
• Matthew Paras can be reached at mparas@washingtontimes.com.
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