Kenny Golladay leapt in the air, took almost a seated motion and got hit in the head. Didn’t matter an Indianapolis Colts defender was close on top of him or that the degree-of-difficulty was going to be extremely high.

Golladay kept his eyes focused on the pass from backup quarterback Jake Rudock. He watched the ball fall into his left hand and then, one-handed, pulled it into his body to secure a catch. Yes, it’s only a preseason game against a team that had porous pass defense last season, but for the Lions, they have to be pleased with what they saw.

Since his first OTA practice, Golladay has been making impressive catches by the day, using his frame and his wide catching radius to become a wide target for any quarterback throwing him the ball. The question always was, though, whether that would continue when games started.

“He's coming along all during the preseason," Lions coach Jim Caldwell told FOX2 at halftime of the Lions-Colts game. "Playing pretty well. Made some nice catches, some pretty tough catches that were behind him. He's getting better."

Yes, the majority of Golladay’s work came against Indianapolis Colts reserves Sunday in the preseason opener. But the Lions have to be happy with what they’ve seen so far. There’s a chance the expectations after his first game will skyrocket -- it’s probably already happening as you read this -- and there will be some difficult learning days ahead as there are for all rookies.

But the skills, the talent, they all translated in a three-catch, 53-yard, two touchdown first-half performance against Indianapolis. He also showed red-zone prowess -- an area he’s been looked at early as a potential contributor. So far, that seems realistic. It showed early with the tough touchdown catch, a 23-yarder from Rudock that showed everything he did during practices when games that don’t count in the standings started to be played.

He makes the difficult look easy. He runs with a smooth stride that appears effortless. He rarely drops the ball but handles the hard catches like he’s still in warm-ups. And if there was any question about Golladay’s play Sunday, he added a second touchdown catch in the first half -- a 15-yarder from Rudock where he adjusted on the Colts cornerback to catch the ball just in front of the end zone and then score.

This is a continuation of what he did at Northern Illinois, where he had back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons and became one of the top receivers in Huskies history despite playing only two years at the school after transferring from North Dakota.

And some of the skills have always been there from St. Rita high school in Chicago. He always had good hands. He made smart plays. But he needed to grow, which is how he ended up at North Dakota. But when 6-foot became 6-foot-4 in two years in Grand Forks and his coaching staff was fired, he wanted to find a new place to play.

So he created his own highlight tape, had his high school coach send it to college coaches, and immediately Northern Illinois was interested.

“They see a transformed kid on film,” Golladay’s high school coach, Todd Kuska, said. “And they said, ‘Holy moly, my, he did everything that we wanted him to do.'"

So he became a FBS receiver, catching 160 passes for 2,285 yards and 18 touchdowns in two years. That production caught the NFL’s attention and the Lions took him in the third round.

And yes, it’s only been one game. And yes, the hype is going to be high from here on out. But a few months of practice and one game in for Golladay, the Lions look like they may have a steal.