Andrew Luck’s Departure Opens a Door for Jacoby Brissett
Andrew Luck’s Departure Opens a Door for Jacoby Brissett
Andrew Luck shocked the sports world last Saturday with the announcement of his retirement from the NFL. The 29 year-old, four-time Pro Bowler was coming off the best statistical season of his career, and with Luck, at the helm, the Indianapolis Colts were expected to win the AFC South and make a playoff run this season. The Colts are now left scrambling to assemble a successful season with the remaining pieces of their roster, and much of that success will depend on the play of Luck’s backup, Jacoby Brissett.
Brissett joined the league in 2016 when he was drafted by the New England Patriots in the third round. The rookie quarterback saw some in-game action that season as Tom Brady served a suspension for the “deflategate” scandal, and backup Jimmy Garoppolo injured his shoulder. Brissett was a serviceable fill-in for the Patriots completing 61.8% of his passes on 55 attempts. Following Brady’s return, Brissett was inactive for the remainder of the 2016 season.
Brissett was traded to Indianapolis in September of 2017 after Andrew Luck was ruled out for the entire season with a shoulder injury. By Week 2, Brissett had won the starting job over Scott Tolzien. In his first start as a Colt, Brissett threw for 216 yards in an overtime loss to the Arizona Cardinals.
The 2017 season is the best litmus test we have to assess Jacoby Brissett thus far. He started in 15 games as the Colts struggled to a 4-12 record. The sophomore quarterback finished the season completing 58.8% of his passes for 3,098 passing yards. He tallied 13 TDs with seven interceptions, and ran for four touchdowns on 260 yards.
Can We Expect Success from Brissett and the Colts This Year?
2017 was a disappointing year for Indianapolis and Jacoby Brissett. The Colts finished the season tied for the third-worst record in the league, and Brissett had the 23rd best passer rating among quarterbacks. It was a far cry from the 10-6 record the Colts earned last year on their way to a wild card spot with Luck back in the starting quarterback position. Will 2019 be a mirror image of 2017 with Brissett back as the starter, or can we expect more success from this Colts team that found themselves in the second week of the playoffs a season ago?
There is a good reason to think the Colts will finish the year somewhere in between where they were the past two years. A key difference is the time Jacoby has had to learn the offensive system. In his first campaign in 2017, Brissett had less than two weeks between arriving in Indianapolis and starting in his first game. Brissett will enter this season with two years of experience on this team and plenty more knowledge of the system. Additionally, Brissett has taken the majority of the first-team snaps this offseason as Andrew Luck continued to miss time recovering from injury. Indianapolis coach Frank Reich estimates Brissett has taken around 1,200 snaps this offseason - a sizeable amount of experience and repetitions.
The team surrounding Brissett has also undergone major improvements since 2017. Most notably is the improved offensive line. A major factor contributing to Andrew Luck’s early retirement was the beating he took in the six seasons he played. For much of his career, the Colts had one of the worst offensive lines in the league. Last season, however, Luck enjoyed one of the top lines in the entire NFL, and he responded with the best season of his career. This year, Jacoby Brissett will enjoy that same offensive line that gave up the fewest sacks in the league a season ago. In 2017 Brissett was sacked a league-high 52 times.
Jacoby will have a prime T.Y. Hilton to throw to this season, as well as a solid, young tight end in Eric Ebron. Marlon Mack is a flourishing, young running back who can potentially have his first 1,000-yard rushing season this year. The Indianapolis offense has the pieces surrounding their quarterback to put together a decent season.
The Colts are solid on the defensive side of the ball as well. Last year their defense ranked 11th in yards allowed per game and 10th in points allowed per game. Darius Leonard is one of the best linebackers in the league, and he will be entering just his second season this year. The rookie led the league in tackles a season ago, and was named a First-Team All-Pro and the defensive Rookie of the Year. Pierre Desir, Kenny Moore and Malik Hooker make up a strong secondary capable of changing the course of a game.
The outlook for the Colts changed dramatically with the news of Luck’s retirement. The Vegas line for the Colts total wins this year immediately dropped from 9.5 to 6.5. With a promising quarterback draft class coming up in 2020 some may expect the Colts to comfortably underperform in hopes of snagging a more promising Andrew Luck replacement in next year’s draft. The pieces, however, are in place for the Colts to make something of this season. Frank Reich has dealt with adversity at the quarterback position before. Reich was serving as Philadelphia’s Offensive coordinator in 2017 when Carson Wentz suffered a season ending injury. Last time his offense had to rely on the backup quarterback they won a Super Bowl over the Patriots.
We’ll get our first chance to see the Jacoby Brissett- led Colts team next Sunday when they take on the Chargers in Los Angeles.
-By: Jonny Hart