Rodrigo “Hot Rod” Blankenship Is the Most Lovable Kicker in the NFL

NFL kickers don’t usually get a lot of shine. If one is making news, it’s most likely because they’ve enraged fans by shanking a chip shot. But Colts’ rookie Rodrigo Blankenship has something of a cult following. You could say it started in 2016, when, still a college kicker for the Georgia Bulldogs, he followed up a last-second, game-winning field goal by doing his postgame interview with his helmet on, endearing himself to the Internet forever. But the love built throughout his time at football-crazed Georgia—where his stellar career ended with the Lou Groza Award, the top honor for college kickers—has since followed him to Indianapolis, who signed him as an undrafted free agent at the beginning of this season.

Part of his charm is the glasses he wears under his helmet. Part of it is his enthusiasm for all things Star Wars and Marvel. (Blankenship spent the anxious night before the Colts announced roster cuts building LEGO sets.) And part of it is that he’s really good at kicking an oblong ball between two yellow posts. In his first year with the Colts, he made 32 field goals (fifth most in the NFL) on 37 attempts and, in Pro Bowl voting, received a higher share of fan votes than any other kicker in the AFC. That those combination of qualities don’t often go together makes Blankenship all the more lovable—especially for Colts fans who are hoping that “Hot Rod” can extend his hot streak into his team’s playoff campaign, which kicks off Saturday against the Buffalo Bills.

GQ spoke to Blankenship on Christmas Eve, before his Colts had clinched a playoff spot, and a few days after he hit a season-long 53-yard field goal. Here, he talks about how he got his start in kicking, how he got that nickname, and the good luck LEGO set that he bought before playing in primetime.

GQ: I read that you first got into football because you just found a kicking tee on the field and decided to take some kicks—is that true?

Rodrigo Blankenship: Sort of. I started playing soccer when I was probably about three or four years old. My mom was Brazilian and soccer is pretty big over there. And then, from a young age, my dad had observed that I’d had a pretty strong leg from kicking a soccer ball. So he just took me out one day. We got a tee from the head coach at Sprayberry high school. I went out onto their practice field one day when no one else was there. My dad just set up a ball on the sticks and said, “Here, kick this like you kick a soccer ball and we'll see what happens.” So I kicked it and it went over the post, and we just kind of never looked back.

And what do you like about it?

I've always felt like competition and sports bring out the best in people. It gives people an opportunity to put it all out there. The emotions are all on the line. Maximum effort. Maximum attention to detail. I've always kind of liked that.

At Georgia, after you hit a game-winning field goal and did an interview with your helmet on, you kind of took off. When you look back now, what stands out about that moment and your experience of it?

That kick was a little bit of a turning point in my development as a kicker. It helped me to have more confidence in myself—like, you can do this, you're not terrible. And then the interview—I didn't even think to take off my helmet. I didn't really have much time to think about it. I got mobbed by my teammates. Basically as soon as the mob broke, our media guy was like, you got a postgame interview right now. They whipped me around, and they were like, we're going live in “Three, two, one…” I was like, “Here we go.” [laughs]

How did the Hot Rod nickname start?

My mom always tried to call me Hot Rod when I was in middle and high school. I was thankful that it never caught on because I was like, “Mom, no, stop.” Like, if I'm going to have a nickname, it's going to come from somewhere else. But my redshirt sophomore year at Georgia when we made our run in the College Football Playoff, some time during that season I noticed that the nickname had kind of started to catch on. I think it was from fans that started to do it. And then the teammates’ family hears about it in the family section, and then the teammates start calling me that. At that point, I couldn't resist it any longer.

Was your mom at your games like shouting, “Hot Rod!” in high school?

Yeah, she would be. [laughs] I mean, I wasn't super tuned into it, but other parents and players would tell me like, “Hey, your mom's calling you Hot Rod.”

This year, as a rooke, you turned into an important member of a lot of fantasy teams. Do you hear about that from friends or people on the Internet?

Yeah, a little bit. All my friends and family that do fantasy, they all texted me at the beginning of the season saying, “I can finally draft you.” And I'm like, “I don't need to know about all that, I’m just trying to do my thing.” [laughs] And I get, whatever, 400 to 500 comments on my Instagram posts every week, and there's always a few of them in there that are talking about “Way to go, you helped my fantasy team this week.” So I am aware, but I try not to give it too much attention.

You don’t seem to get very flustered. Where does that calm come from?

I've tried to make a very serious effort to grow my relationship with God this season. I had a Christian upbringing but had just been kind of distant for most of my time in college, so I just wanted to kind of recommit. There's a passage in scripture that talks about how God can provide a peace that only he can give, that the world can't offer to you.

I didn't want to get super spiritual, super religious on you! [laughs] But that's really the only only explanation that I can think of to offer.

I noted in doing some research that you missed your first ever kick at Georgia and missed your first ever kick for the Colts, too, right?

I did miss my first ever attempt at Georgia, so that wasn't great. And I did have my first miss as a professional in that Jacksonville game but it wasn't the first attempt. We had a two minute drill at the end of the first half, and we went down and got in range and made it. But they called time out right before the snap. So I had to go back and make it again. So I actually made my first career field goal twice.

I did miss my first one later in the game—and then didn't really have much time to think about it because we had to kick another field goal pretty shortly after that. That’s the mindset: stuff's not always going to go your way, but regardless of what happens, you have to have short-term memory. To be able to analyze it, dissect it, and then flush it and move on, regardless of whether it's a good kick or a not so good kick. The process has to be the same.

You had a game-winner against Green Bay. And then, this past weekend you hit your NFL career long. What does a celebratory night after a big kick look like?

Honestly, there isn't a whole lot to it. I'll go home. My parents were in town for this past game and so I went out to dinner with them and my girlfriend, Logan. We all went out to eat together after the game. Whether we win or lose, if I get back at a reasonable time, I'll go out to dinner with Logan. We might take our dog Arbor for a walk, but there isn't a whole lot to it. A piece of advice I got from a veteran kicker that we had played against earlier in the year was, “You can't get too high or too low.”

I know you’ve talked about your interest in Legos. I’ve also read that you like sneakers. I'm curious if you had a big splurge or treated yourself this year.

I have a budget. Part of trying to be responsible as a rookie is not blowing all of the money that we get, because it is more money than we've ever seen in our entire lives. Even as an undrafted free agent, making the minimum is still more money than I've ever seen in my entire life. We worked with a financial advisor that is working with a lot of guys on the team. So we set aside some money for sneakers and Legos or Transformers or Marvel stuff.

I will say, before we played Tennessee the first time, I was like, “This is a big game. We win this game and”—at the time—“it would put us in first place in the division.” I feel like we just needed a little something extra. So I'm like on my way to the airport and I'm like, “Well, [the Legos] worked the first time. Let's see if it works again.” So I went to Target on my way to the airport, as we're getting ready to go to Tennessee. And I got a big Lego Star Wars set, the newest Boba Fett Slave I set. I was like, let's see if this works again. [laughs] So I bought it and put it in the backseat of my truck and went to the airport and I was like hopefully that's the good luck charm that we need. I'm not gonna say that was the only reason we won, but it didn't hurt.

So if you make the playoffs, which you got a great shot to do, I think you're going to have to break that budget rule and buy Legos before every game.

[laughs] We'll see. Whatever it takes to get the job done.

One of the most lonely looking feelings in sports is when a kicker is the last guy between a kicker returner and an endzone, and you have to make a tackle. Do you go through tackling drills for moments like that?

I did do some tackling drills over the course of my time at Georgia. I actually got a concussion in preseason camp in 2016, the first year that I was actually kicking for the team after I redshirted. I was doing a tackling drill and got a concussion because I had very poor technique and lowered my head into one of our tight ends. He lowered his shoulder and it didn't end well. After that, I stopped doing tackling drills with tight ends.

I haven't done a ton of them here, but our job is not to make tackles. Our job is to take kickoffs. We’re just hoping that we can hit a good kickoff and do our part and just trust our kickoff coverage team is going to go down there and be some ballers and make some plays.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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Originally Appeared on GQ