As it turned out, Colts receiver Reggie Wayne’s recent “personal issue” was the birth of a child and not an effort to cause trouble for the team. (Curiously, though, the team consistently has refused to disclose the nature of the “personal issue,” even after everyone knew what it was.)
Here’s an effort from Reggie Wayne to cause trouble for the team.
On the day that the Colts finally decided to “break glass in event of emergency” with the signing of quarterback Kerry Collins, Wayne was hardly welcoming of the team’s newest player.
“We don’t even know him, we ain’t vanilla, man, we ain’t no simple offense,” Wayne said, via the Associated Press. “So for him to can come in here and be the starter, I don’t see it. I think that’s a step back.
“Who says Kerry’s going to be the starter?” Wayne added. “Just because we bring him in doesn’t mean he’s the starter. He’s got to learn too, right? Unless they gave him a playbook months ago, he’s got to learn to.
“I don’t care who you are, I mean I’m not going to let anyone just come in here and just push someone [like Curtis Painter] aside like you’re that dog now, you know what I mean?”
To borrow a line from Joe Pesci a/k/a Vincent LaGuardia Gambini, “I think. I get. The point.”
Meanwhile, the presumed Peyton Manning replacement before Collins came along, tried to say all the right things.
“It was a business decision for them,” Curtis Painter said. “It doesn’t change much from my thought process. I need to go out there and be ready for any situation.”
One situation Painter needs to be ready for? If Manning comes off the PUP list but if he isn’t ready to play Week One, it’s highly unlikely that the Colts would keep Manning, Collins, Painter, and Dan Orlovsky on the active roster. Thus, chances are that Painter or Orlovsky will be gone.
Whether Reggie Wayne likes it or not.