Roger Grossman
News Now Warsaw
Man, this Colts season sure took a turn for the worse, didn’t it?
The men with the horseshoes on their helmets were 7-1, and that one loss was in LA to the Rams, which now looks like a pretty good loss for Indy.
Then they suffered an injury at the one position that almost no football team can survive—the quarterback.
The Colts were an offensive machine for more than half the season. They threw it, they ran it, and they were the top-scoring offense in the entire league.
Then, in a way that is hard to describe, they didn’t look the same. Daniel Jones was not completing passes with the same accuracy and efficiency that he had been. They were running, but not for as many yards.
Was it because other teams had figured out some things? Maybe.
Was it because their defensive shortcomings were starting to catch up with them? Possibly, but they made a massive investment in that side of the ball with an in-season trade for Sauce Gardner.
Jones admitted that his leg had been hurting, and further review showed that it was a fracture in one of the bones in his leg. It wasn’t broken to the point that he didn’t feel like he could play, so he kept playing.
Then the Colts traveled to Jacksonville.
This trip hasn’t been good for Indianapolis for over a decade. The Colts have taken some teams that should have beaten the Jags by three scores to Florida, but every time they flew back home, they wondered what in the world happened.
This time, though, it was much worse.
Oh sure, they lost again, but they also lost Jones. He injured his Achilles (on the other leg) and his season ended.
The Colts put former Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard in the game, and he played fine … but then he hurt his knee.
The Colts emergency quarterback is not a quarterback at all. The backup plan if both the quarterbacks got hurt was rookie tight end Tyler Warren.
Yes, the Colts should have had more than two quarterbacks on the active roster, but with Anthony Richardson still recovering from getting hit in the eye with a rubber exercise band before a game, their quarterback room was empty.
With no quarterbacks available, General Manager Chris Ballard picked up the phone, dug through his contact list to the “R’s,” and called Phillip Rivers.
44-year-old father-of-10 and grandfather-of-one Phillip Rivers, that is.
Rivers has been hanging out at home since retiring from the Colts in 2020. He’s been doing what 44-year-old guys do — he was watching football and trying to spoil his grandkid while waiting for his kids to provide him more.
But when the phone rang on his birthday, Monday, it was like Commissioner Gordon calling Batman to tell him that the Riddler and the Joker had escaped from jail again.
His face went somber, he shook his head in agreement, and he said he was on his way.
He hugged his wife and hopped on a plane to Indianapolis to see if he could save the day for the Colts.
Rivers insisted the Colts put him on the practice squad to start with. That’s a very noble gesture on his part.
Without saying it, he was saying, “I really don’t know if I can pull this off, but I am sure willing to try.”
By being on the practice squad, it meant the Colts didn’t have to cut anyone right away to make room for Rivers.
And the best part of the story is that we are talking about Phillip Rivers here. Very few have expressed more self-confidence in life and in football than this guy.
He is a master of trash-talking and his mouth never stops moving. Rarely is it ever malicious. It’s normally delivered in good fun, but it also comes with a point behind it.
And for a long time in the NFL, he backed it up.
So when Ballard needed a lifeline, there really was only one person to call—Rivers.
Who else would have the courage and self-belief to pull it off?
Who else would be able to walk into the offensive team room at Colts camp and have complete command of the room?
No one.
Let’s be clear: Rivers is a short-term solution, and with the Colts sending some serious draft picks away for Gardner, the long-term answer is not easy.
Potentially, they could hope that Jones is ready to roll by training camp and use a lower-round draft pick on a QB-of-the-future that would be the backup now.
Or there is another fascinating idea that I take full credit for coming up with: I wonder what the Bengals might want in exchange for Joe Burrow?
He basically said he feels like he’s wasting away in Cincinnati, and the Colts would move into the top 3 of the AFC if they could bring Burrow up the interstate.
They may … hold it … what’s that noise outside? It’s him! Gotta go give some advice to a friend.
See you next week. Merry Christmas!
