New on SI: After Luck's Abrupt Retirement, Jacoby Brissett Became 2019's Most Unexpected Starting Quarterback

When Andrew Luck revealed his shocking decision to retire at the beginning of the season, Colts QB Jacoby Brissett become the most unexpected starting quarterback in the NFL in 2019.

Andrew Luck summoned his backup to the locker room. It was a Friday afternoon in late August, a little more than 24 hours before the Colts' third preseason game. Luck didn't say why he wanted to meet, but when Jacoby Brissett arrived, he remembers thinking his friend didn't look good. "He was never the most well-groomed guy," Brissett jokes, but in addition to his usually disheveled beard, the anguish on Luck's face was clear. Before he could speak he started to cry—not a soft cry but an ugly sob, tears rolling down. Holy s---, Brissett thought to himself. What's about to happen?

Finally, Luck stammered his secret. For the next half-hour he explained that he was walking away from football, retiring at 29 because he couldn't escape the maddening cycle of injury to treatment to rehab to the next injury. One of the most abrupt retirements in NFL history left Brissett as the most unexpected starting quarterback in the league as the 2019 season opened.

The 27-year-old knew right away that he needed to address the locker room. He sought out veteran wideout T.Y. Hilton to go over what he planned to say, and then he stood before the team—his team—inside the locker room, two days after Luck retired. He told them he realized that Luck was a special person, that many of them had come to Indy just to play with him and that he made their championship expectations realistic. "I'm not going to be [number] 12," Brissett said. "But listen, I'm playing. Either you like it, or you don't, but it's nothing for y'all to freak out about."

The Colts found him genuine in that moment and, more important, unafraid. "The best part about that speech," says tight end Jack Doyle, "is that you felt it."

Brissett had replaced Luck once before, when Luck missed the 2017 season with a shoulder injury. He was thrust into the lineup before he was ready and only 15 days after being traded to Indy, struggling to a 4–11 record as a starter. The low point came in Week 14, at home, an ugly Thursday-night home loss to the Broncos. In the locker room afterward, he collapsed into the arms of quarterbacks coach Brian Schottenheimer and choked out sobs. "It was like, F---, this can't be happening," Brissett says now.

In the days after Luck's retirement, Brissett felt overwhelmed by what he calls "the noise" swirling in his head. He spoke with Indy's team clinician, Elizabeth White, and their initial consult lasted almost two hours. He began meditating, with the help of an app White had recommended. Brissett determined that he would not try to approximate Luck; he would strive to be the best version of Jacoby Brissett.

Unlike in 2017, he was ready. The Colts got off to a 5–2 start. Brissett engineered two fourth-quarter comebacks, including in Week 8 against the Broncos. Trailing by one with 1:48 left and the ball on the Colts' 11, he spun out of the grasp of Von Miller, escaped right and lofted a 35-yard pass to Hilton, opening a drive that set up the winning field goal.

Then there were setbacks. Brissett sprained his left MCL early in the second quarter of a Week 9 game in Pittsburgh. With backup Brian Hoyer under center, the Colts let that game—and the next one, against lowly Miami—slip away. Brissett returned in Week 11 to crush the Jaguars, only to stumble against Houston four days later. Two weeks after that, the defense collapsed in a 38–35 loss at Tampa. A surprisingly uneven season from future Hall of Fame kicker Adam Vinatieri cost Indy multiple games, and a rash of injuries, including to Hilton, limited the offense. Still, in the final quarter of the season, the Colts remained in the playoff hunt.

One week after Luck's retirement, the Colts signed Brissett to a two-year deal for $30 million total, $20 million guaranteed. His private quarterback coach, Tom House, believes that Brissett is the Colts' future. At a passing camp in Atlanta last offseason, House saw the way that Brissett interacted with the campers, how they gravitated to him. He's not going to compare Brissett with prominent clients like Tom Brady or Drew Brees, but he also maintains, "he has a similar drive to those guys."

Brissett still counts Luck among his mentors—they speak weekly and meet for lunch whenever time permits. He even picked out some gifts for Luck's newborn, Lucy. But he could never bring himself to watch Luck's retirement press conference. He hates when he hears anyone say that Luck quit on his team. Brissett sees it this way: To keep playing through that kind of misery would have been like Luck quitting on his family, or himself.

Back in August, as Luck explained why he was retiring, Brissett watched as his friend's body language and facial expressions changed the more he spoke. By the end of their conversation, he looked happy, relieved. As he wrapped up, he left Brissett with this message: "I'm going to be your biggest fan." After the way Brissett navigated the past four months, Luck might have some rivals.