The Colts have already announced that quarterback Andrew Luck wasn’t going to play this week, but the identity of his replacement was still up in the air.
But after starter Scott Tolzien threw a pair of pick-sixes and was generally awful last week, Colts coach Chuck Pagano admitted that starting recently acquired Jacoby Brissett was a possibility.
“It’s something that we’ll discuss later tonight and tomorrow as we game plan,” Pagano said, via Zak Keefer of the Indianapolis Star. “You gotta do what’s best for the football team and give us the best chance to move the ball and put points on the board.”
If that’s Brissett, then the thing that’s best for the team will be the guy with six practices after being acquired in a trade with the Patriots, instead of the hand-picked backup who has been there all offseason. That means likely condensing the playbook, and they should totally take the plays out where the quarterback throws to the other team.
“That’s a lot, obviously,” Pagano said. “There’s nobody that can come in and digest and learn a playbook in that period of time. There’s challenges with any quarterback in any system in any NFL building.”
The Colts went through this in 2015 when Luck was hurt, dragging Josh Freeman in off the street to play in Week 17. But this seems early in the year for desperation. And even though he captured everyone’s imagination with a 50-yard bomb in garbage time, Brissett seems to know that too.
“I played not even a quarter,” Brissett said. “That’s not my job to tell who the starter is or not. That’s the coach’s job. It’s my job to go out there and just compete and continue to learn. I’ve been here a week, but it’s a work in progress.”
That may sum up the Colts season as well as anything. Maybe they can put it on a banner.