The 0-3 Indianapolis face the 2-1 Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday Night Football tonight at 8:30pm ET.
The winless Colts have been struggling without the leadership of Peyton Manning. Kerry Collins, whom the Colts picked up in late August when it became clear that Manning would be out for a substantial portion of the season, has been struggling. And now he is dealing with “concussion like symptoms,” after being knocked out of last week’s game.
Curtis Painter gets his first career start at QB for the Colts. He went 5 of 11 for 60 yards in limited action last week after Collins left the game, and led the final five drives for the Colts against the Steelers. He led an 80-yard drive that tied the game late in the fourth quarter, but the Colts ultimately fell to the Steelers 23-20.
Painter has gotten all of the prep time this week in practice and is ready to go.
“He’s certainly made good strides during the course of the week,” said head coach Jim Caldwell. “He’s got good rhythm going right now, and yesterday’s practice was very good.”
“He’s one of those guys that’s got a lot of inner strength. They say, ‘still waters run deep.’ That’s what I think we see in terms of Curtis.”
While filling Manning’s shoes has been an impossible job, expectations have changed a bit in Indianapolis, and Painter has a chance to provide a breath of fresh air to this struggling offense. So far this season, the Colts have the 29th ranked passing attack and the 24th ranked rushing attack, a far cry from the Manning era.
“I’m excited for it. It will be fun,” said Painter. “It will be a great atmosphere. We’ll go down there, give it all we’ve got and hopefully bring home a win. I’m excited to be out there with the guys. We had some success the last game, and, hopefully, we can carry that over with continued success.”
And he doesn’t have a bigger stage to start on than Monday Night Football.
