Colts try to quickly turn corner after Luck’s decision

INDIANAPOLIS — Reality hit hard as soon as the Indianapolis Colts walked into their locker room Monday morning. Andrew Luck’s stall was empty, the name plate gone, the era over.

Coach Frank Reich and GM Chris Ballard started the day with a team meeting to discuss how the Colts would proceed without their newly retired starting quarterback. Luck’s replacement, Jacoby Brissett, took the podium inside a packed media room, Pro Bowl receiver T.Y. Hilton wore a Stanford baseball cap to honor his 2012 draft classmate and then it was time to get back to work.

“In one respect this story is unique and shocking,” coach Frank Reich said. “But it’s happened enough where a team loses a great player, and it galvanizes a team and propels them to a championship.”

The former pastor has a vast array of resources to make the point, some from his own experiences. In 1989, when Jim Kelly got hurt most thought the Buffalo Bills would slow things down for his backup, Reich. Instead, coach Marv Levy didn’t change a thing and Reich responded by leading the Bills to three consecutive wins. Three years later, with Kelly out again, Reich won two playoff games, including the greatest comeback in postseason history as the Bills eventually won their third straight AFC title.

In 2017, Reich was Philadelphia’s offensive coordinator when MVP candidate Carson Wentz tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee — an injury many expected to derail the Eagles’ title hopes. Instead, Nick Foles stepped in and led Philadelphia to its first title since 1960. Then there was the seemingly made-for-TV script from two decades ago when a grocery store bagger-turned-quarterback Kurt Warner took over for the injured Trent Green and led the St. Louis Rams to a Super Bowl title. Warner was the league’s MVP, too.

But Reich and the Colts know this season is not about the past. They must focus on adding their own, unique chapter to the underdog story.

“I need to be Jacoby Brissett, just be myself,” he said when asked about permanently replacing his close friend.

Outside the locker room, many doubt Brissett can emerge as the next Foles, Warner or even Reich. Brissett went 4-11 in 2017, becoming the starter less than two weeks after Indy acquired him in a trade from New England, behind an offensive line that allowed the most sacks in the NFL that season.

Around the Colts’ complex, though, there are plenty of Brissett believers. Reich noted Brissett has taken more than 1,200 snaps with the starting unit since April when offseason workouts started as Luck tried to recover from a lower left leg injury. Plus, he’s working with a coach who has been down this road. Reich spent his first decade in the NFL playing behind a Hall of Famer, needing to be ready at every moment.