Curtis Painter had a solid game for the injured Colts in their Monday night loss to the Buccaneers, but the coaching staff isn’t ready to give him the keys to the offense… at least not yet.
Asked on Tuesday about whether Painter would start next week against the 1-3 Kansas City Chiefs, head coach Jim Caldwell said, “We’re not going to make that decision today.”
“I can tell you he did the things we asked him to do. Obviously you can see he had some bright spots, but we’ll see how things go the next day or so.”
This decision, or lack thereof, highlights some strange indecisiveness in the Colts coaching staff. As soon as it became clear that Peyton Manning was going to be out for an extended period of time, the Colts hurriedly signed quarterback Kerry Collins out of retirement.
This move was inexplicable for several reasons. It sent the message that the team had no confidence in Painter to step in. But isn’t that exactly what the backup QBs job is? Manning had been trying to recover from his second neck surgery for months, so the prospect that he might miss games wasn’t exactly a news flash.
Sure, the Colts were spoiled during Manning’s run of over 200 games without missing a single start. But Painter spent three years as an understudy and was certainly more familiar with the offense and the personnel than Collins, who had less than three weeks to get ready.
Clearly five time Pro Bowl receiver Reggie Wayne agreed. “It took me two years to learn this offense,” Wayne said. “Now, you mean to tell me you’re gonna bring in somebody and he’s gonna learn it in 18 days? That just didn’t sit right. That just didn’t sit right with me. And I know we had Curtis Painter who’d been here for three years. You just gotta give him a shot. We gotta give him a chance.”
“I may get a lot of flak about this, but that’s all the way different from what our whole motto is. Our whole motto’s always been ‘the next man up.’ And then we went and got somebody else. I’m like, ‘Well, that’s not how we roll, really.’ ”
Collins struggled in his three starts behind a porous offensive line, where he was hit 6 times in his last start at Pittsburgh, and sacked twice the week before in Cleveland. The Colts have the 26th ranked passing defense and the 28th ranked rushing defense, so it is certainly not entirely Collins fault, but Painter had flashes of brilliance in his first start last week.
His first touchdown pass on Monday was an 87-yard strike to Pierre Garcon, which is a club record. Peyton Manning has thrown 399 touchdown passes over his career, but his longest was 86 yards.
And in almost 3 full games, Collins had 481 yards passing and 2 TDs. In about 1 and a quarter games, Painter has thrown for 341 yards and 2 TDs.
It’s time to give Painter a chance to run the Colts offense and see what he can do with it. They are sitting at 0-4, but have a chance the next two weeks at 1-3 Kansas City and 2-2 Cincinnati.
