If Luck can’t play in LA, here are the Colts two quarterbacks – Jacoby Brissett and Phillip Walker. If either in hurt in the final two preseason games, it could cost the Colts their season.
Taking a chance on Chad Kelly as a favor to his Uncle Jim might have terrible consequences for the Indianapolis Colts.
Colts coach Frank Reich has been asked many times and in many ways the last two days whether Jacoby Brissett will be among the starters who will sit Saturday night against the Chicago Bears at Lucas Oil Stadium. It’s a great question.
Saving a back-up quarterback during the third preseason game is virtually unprecedented in the history of these useless events, but in this case it’s a virtual certainty because losing Brissett to injury would cause roster chaos, even if Andrew Luck is healthy for the opener.
That’s because Chad Kelly will serve a suspension during the first two weeks of the regular season because he wandered into the home of some people he didn’t know – and more importantly who didn’t know him – following Broncos teammate Von Miller’s 2018 Halloween party. Kelly reportedly sat on the couch mumbling incoherently with the residents of the home, who responded to the intrusion by hitting Kelly with a vacuum cleaner tube until he left.
Here are three possible scenarios:
- Luck is healthy enough to play during the opener against the Chargers, but Brissett gets hurt against the Bears or Bengals. Walker becomes the back-up for a quarterback who was not healthy enough to take a single snap in the preseason. Not good.
- Luck can’t go in LA, and Brissett is healthy because he sat the last two preseason games but Phillip Walker gets hurt. That leaves Brissett as the starter and the back-up quarterback would be, well, nobody. Also not good.
- Brissett gets hurt and Luck can’t go. Walker is be the only eligible and healthy quarterback on the roster. Really not good.
So all of a sudden, the collective health of the Colts at the quarterback position is important in the extreme. If any of the quarterbacks, other the Kelly, get hurt in the remaining two preseason games, the Colts will need to find another quarterback as quickly as they did at the end of the 2017 preseason when Brissett was acquired in exchange for Phillip Dorsett in a deal with the Patriots.
Brissett being backed up by Walker is a reason for sleepless nights among the Colts coaching staff, but Brissett or Walker being backed up by nobody is a worst case scenario that’s a season wrecker.
Almost makes the last two preseason games worth watching.