Indianapolis Colts: Week 9 in Quotes

The Indianapolis Colts are in the midst of a three-game losing streak, which included two AFC South division rivals. They face another this week in the Houston Texans. Both teams placed their franchise quarterbacks on season-ending Injured Reserve this week, so it’s been an interesting week, to say the least. Here are some of the more interesting quotes that I’ve found leading up to this weekend’s game.

“I don’t know the answer to that.”

-Colts head coach Chuck Pagano when asked if quarterback Andrew Luck has thrown since he received his cortisone shot and if his should flared back up afterward.

What?! I understand not wanting to give an answer to that question, but it makes a head coach look so totally clueless with an answer like that. I literally just think it translates to, “I don’t know how to answer that to the media.”

“It takes time for everybody, and he’s just continued to work and work and work. And he went out and played well yesterday. He played hard, he played physical, played well on special teams and the sack, obviously, was a great football play. And then there was a play that broke, and he came and turned and chased and ran and pursued and made a play 15 yards down the field. Those are the kind of things that you start to look at and say, ‘This kid is grown up and becoming everything we thought he could.’”

-Pagano when asked about what was holding rookie edge defender Tarell Basham back before having a good game last Sunday against the Bengals.

You have to take what Pagano says with a grain of salt because he sees the world through the rosiest of glasses, but Basham did turn in his best performance on Sunday. It’s nice to see after he had shown little to nothing up to this point.

“No, he’s full now. He’s full. No limitations, but we’ll still ease him in. It was all limited, controlled environment stuff last week — 7-on-7, individual. Now we’ll be able to infuse him into team drills. He looked good. He’s getting his football legs underneath him and now, we’re in pads today, so he’ll have a chance — it’s no tackling to the ground — but some thud stuff where he can start thudding up some backs and things.”

-Pagano on if safety Clayton Geathers would be a non-contact participant again this week.

It sounds like the Colts could get their starting strong safety back in the fold sooner rather than later. After this week, they host the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 10 but then have their bye in Week 11. Geathers could make his season debut in Week 12. Ironically, it would be against the Tennessee Titans, the team that he injured himself against last year.

“On Andrew (Luck) — we’re going to put Andrew on IR (injured reserve). The one thing I want you all to understand is that there has never been once a time where I’ve tried to mislead, as an organization we’ve try to mislead. This whole thing has been very fluid. I don’t ever want you all to think that we’re not being honest when we’re up here. Two weeks ago or three weeks ago whenever we talked the last time, we were shutting him down, getting him the cortisone shot to see if we could get his soreness to calm down and it hadn’t calmed down. Last week, we finally got together again and we decided let’s go see some more experts. Let’s go see some doctors. We went and saw his original Dr. (Marc) Safran and saw other multiple doctors. The consensus from all the doctors is to continue rehab, to be patient and to continue rehab. The shoulder is subjective. After a surgery, everybody is different. Everybody rehabs in a different way. We’re going to shut his throwing down and continue rehab; we’re going to continue hard rehab. We think for the long-term interest of Andrew, this is the best course of action. I’ve heard all kinds of rumors about career ending, that’s not the case here. I’ve not got that from one doctor. Career ending is putting him out on the field before he’s ready to play. That’s where you should be concerned. We’re doing everything we can as an organization to give Andrew a chance and Andrew is doing everything he can to have a chance — to have a long-term career. And that’s what he plans on doing and that’s what we plan on him doing.”

-Colts general manager Chris Ballard announcing that Luck is being placed on Injured Reserve, shutting him down for the season.

“It was a combination to make sure we had enough depth at the position because Jacoby had been taking some shots in games and we like Nate Sudfeld.”

-Ballard when asked about the team attempting to sign former IU Football quarterback Nate Sudfeld from the Philadelphia Eagles practice squad this week. Ballard was asked if it was about Luck’s status or Jacoby Brissett taking a lot of hits.

There have also been reports this week that the Colts will sign veteran quarterback Josh Johnson whenever they do decide to pick up another signal-caller. If they do that, does it signal the end for Scott Tolzien in Indianapolis?

“Yeah, right now I think it’s a good chemistry, a good one-two punch. I think particularly I look at Frank. (He’s) taken a little more of a mentor role with Marlon, and that’s something that I like seeing him do and have wanted him to do. I think that how we have them right now is kind where we want them to be, and we’ll see how that continues. Again, if we can stay on the field and we can keep running the ball, that helps in that way.”

-Colts offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski on how running backs Frank Gore and Marlon Mack are feeding off of each other.

I loved Mack during the draft process but my main concern when the Colts drafted him was that it would take him a while to acclimate to an NFL system. Mack’s collegiate system at USF couldn’t be further from what NFL offenses run, as it was spread-out wide and gimmicky. Mack couldn’t have a better mentor to help him become a complete NFL back than Gore.