Opinion: NFL team best positioned to handle losing star QB like Andrew Luck? The Colts

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SportsPulse: While Jacoby Brissett is no Andrew Luck, he is no slouch. Here are five reasons why the Indianapolis Colts will be just fine with Brissett.
USA TODAY

INDIANAPOLIS – Two days ago Andrew Luck announced his retirement from the NFL, and now someone’s screaming in the Indianapolis Colts locker room. Doesn’t sound sad or anguished, though. Sounds excited. Sounds happy. Sounds like this:

“Whooooooo!!!”

It’s Darius Leonard, the All-Pro linebacker last season, the guy whose stated goal this season is to win the Super Bowl and Super Bowl MVP. And he’s not backing down from that. Not even After Andrew.

“No sir,” he says, and he’s smiling that big ol’ Darius Leonard smile.

But this changes everything, right? Andrew Luck was a four-time Pro Bowl quarterback, one of the best in the NFL. A team, even one drawing legit Super Bowl chatter, doesn’t just lose a guy like that without a drop-off. So this is what I’m asking Leonard: What’s this team’s ceiling, now?

“No ceiling,” he says.

He’s not smiling.

Quenton Nelson: ‘It’s go time’

Frank Reich is talking about slogans, again. It’s what the Colts coach does, talking about “getting 1% better” and “going 1-0 this week.”

Now he’s talking about one of his favorites: Mount Everest, how an NFL team has to scale those heights to reach the Super Bowl. And he’s talking about losing his Sherpa, about losing Andrew Luck.

“We know this guy isn’t done climbing mountains,” Reich says, then acknowledges that for Luck, the mountain has changed. Reich throws out one possibility: Luck, who has a book club, might just inspire a million kids to read.

“Also,” Reich says, “this team isn’t done climbing. We’re just getting started. And we can’t wait.”

If the Colts are crushed by the sudden retirement of Luck, they’re hiding it well. Now, get this straight: To a man, this franchise adores Andrew Luck. Everyone I spoke with Monday in the locker room – and it was close to everyone, felt like – said they were happy for Luck, happy that he’s “at peace,” to use a phrase repeated over and over.

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But they don’t love that he’s gone. T.Y. Hilton, wearing a Stanford hat given to him by Luck, a Cardinal alum, called him “my best friend” several times, and said of Luck’s departure: “I still cry some.”

But that stuff’s off the field. On it? This team sounds ready to roll.

“It’s go time,” Quenton Nelson says.

Thing is, the Colts are better positioned to handle something like this, the sudden loss of a franchise quarterback, than any other team in the NFL. No, really. If we were to rank the 32 NFL teams on their ability to recover from such a loss, the Colts might just be No. 1. Two reasons for that:

One: Beyond quarterback, for the other 52 players on the 53-man roster, the Colts’ depth and talent level is better than it’s been in a decade, since Peyton Manning was here striving for Super Bowls. Their offensive line is dominant. Their defense was nasty last season, and on paper looks better. Their depth at receiver and tight end is glorious. Their linebackers are better, their running backs healthier, their special teams unchanged at kicker, punter and long snapper.

Two: Jacoby Brissett. 

Brissett at heart of happy locker room

Jacoby Brissett isn’t – sorry, wasn’t – one of the best backup quarterbacks in the NFL. He was the best. In a league with a half-dozen or more starting quarterbacks who ought to be a backup, there is – sorry, was – one backup QB who should be a starter: Brissett. 

Not the starter here, of course. He isn’t, wasn’t, won’t ever be better than Luck, or even his equal. That’s an unfair bar, though, so let’s never mention it again. But let’s mention this: Reich and Colts general manager Chris Ballard, who acquired Brissett in September 2017 for receiver Phillip Dorsett and have rejected trade overtures ever since, believe Brissett isn’t just starter-quality. They put him toward the upper half of the starters in the NFL.

“A top-20 quarterback,” Reich was saying Monday. “The guy’s a legit starter in this league.”

He looked the part in 2017, and he had no business doing that. Remember how that whole thing came together? Ballard acquired Brissett eight days before the regular-season opener at the Los Angeles Rams, and after replacing Scott Tolzien in the fourth quarter, Brissett completed a 50-yard pass on his first attempt. The Colts scored on his first drive. Was it a Disney movie? No. The Colts lost 46-9 that day, and proceeded to go 4-12 that season.

But Brissett started 15 games and threw for 3,098 yards, and he did it by learning the offense on the fly. Also, he did it with an inferior supporting cast – Colts’ top receivers then: T.Y. Hilton, Donte Moncrief, Chester Rogers; Colts’ top receivers now: Hilton, Devin Funchess, Parris Campbell, Deon Cain, Chester Rogers … plus tight end Eric Ebron – and, to be blunt, an inferior coaching staff. Specifically on offense, where Brissett was working for Chuck Pagano and Rob Chudzinski. Going from Chuck and Chud to Reich and Nick Sirianni is like going from seventh grade to Stanford.

Speaking of which … Luck wasn’t around much that 2017 season to help Brissett. He left for Europe, remember? Brissett has been learning from Luck ever since, though. He’s ready for this.

“Players gravitate toward him,” Nelson says. “And on the field, he’s really good. I mean – really good.”

Across the locker room, Leonard is shouting again. He has to be heard over the voice of linebacker Anthony Walker and defensive end Carroll Rogers and a handful of other players who sound awfully happy to be here, even if their franchise quarterback is not.

Leonard is shouting at Brissett.

“You better be in those pictures!” Leonard is shouting. He’s talking about the way the Colts defense celebrated turnovers in 2018, by sprinting to the end zone where team photographer Matt Bowen was working, and posing as a happy group with the purloined football.

Brissett used to come charging off the sideline to join the defense for those pictures. He’s not sure he can do that anymore, now that he’s the starter. Brissett thinks he might be talking to his offensive line or receivers or coordinator or …

“You better be there!” Leonard shouts, smiling that smile again.

Brissett smiles back at him and nods. He’ll find a way.

Colts sound ready to run

Wearing a blue Colts T-shirt with one of Reich’s slogans across the front – 1-0, it says – Mark Glowinski is talking slowly, and taping his hands methodically

“Everybody is making it seem like it’s the end of the world,” says Glowinski, the right guard, “and I’m saying when one guy goes down, the next guy steps up.”

Glowinski pulls another strip of white tape across his knuckles. He’s doing what boxers do before sparring, preparing his hands, protecting them. Taping them. He’s still talking slowly, staring at his hands, never looking at me.

“I’m saying it’s nonsense,” he says, rolling another strip of tape across his knuckles.

“I’m saying we’ll get through it as a team, because that’s the way they built this, that’s the character in the building,” he says. Another strip of tape.

“I’m saying we do it all together,” he says, ripping the tape and attaching the last piece to his knuckles. Now he’s pounding his left fist into his right palm – Pow! Pow! – and I’m not sure he remembers I’m here. It feels like he’s meditating: on the tape, on his fists, on the future.

“I’m saying the world’s still going to spin,” he says. “That’s how it’s going to go.”

Across the room, the sound of maniacal laughter draws my attention. It’s Matthew Adams and Anthony Walker, cackling at Darius Leonard. To that point, Leonard had been holding court with about 20 reporters lined up four-deep in a semi-circle around his locker. But Hilton has just arrived at his locker, and given his relationship with Luck on and off the field, reporters need his reaction to Luck’s retirement. In an instant, Leonard is alone at his locker.

“They abandoned you, Darius!” Adams shouts.

Walker is laughing so hard he can’t speak, but he can do this: He can move his arms up and down, up and down, imitating the reporters hurrying for Hilton. Anthony Walker is pretending to do what the Colts believe they will do when the 2019 NFL season begins.

He’s running. He’s running fast.

Follow the Indianapolis Star‘s Gregg Doyel on Twitter @GreggDoyelStar.

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