To say the 2019 season for Jacoby Brissett was crazy would be shortchanging to anyone. Traded to Indianapolis right before the start of the 2017 season, Brissett was expected to be the backup for the Colts in 2019 with a healthy Andrew Luck returning to form in 2018. Well, the complete opposite happened.

Throughout the 2019 offseason, Luck was rehabbing the calf injury he sustained in OTAs and so Brissett took almost all of the first-team reps all summer.

Then, of course, August 24th came, Luck retired and now Brissett goes from thinking he’s backing up Luck to being the starter of a team that just won 10 games and made the divisional round of the playoffs.

Brissett and the Colts couldn’t envision a better start to his season, 15 total touchdowns and five turnovers in the first seven games, and the Colts were 5-2. Then an MCL injury occurred, and other circumstances happened that hurt Brissett’s second half. His production dropped to seven touchdowns and five turnovers in the final eight games.

While it is unclear what the future holds for Brissett, there are improvements that need to be made. Here’s a quick look at some of them:

Throwing with anticipation

In the Frank Reich scheme, the concepts are mostly about timing and throwing with anticipation and in 2019, that was one of Brissett’s weak points.

Throughout the season people watching would see Brissett be late on his passes and one of his biggest problems was he needed to see the receiver come open before throwing the pass. In Reich’s scheme, the quarterback must throw to a spot, and trust the receiver to be there.

It didn’t help that not only did Brissett miss time with an injury but almost all his receivers missed time here and there especially late in the season. More continuity at the pass-catcher spot might help Brissett with this skill.

Accuracy/Throwing receivers open

Early in the season, Brissett flashed pretty good accuracy and touch on most of his passes. He completed over 70% in two of the first four games, but after the injury things went sideways.

In the end-of-season presser, Reich talked about what he looks for in an elite quarterback.

“I have always categorized one of the traits as being elite accuracy,” said Reich. “If you want to be an elite quarterback you have to have elite accuracy. I think elite accuracy is at the top.”

While Brissett doesn’t have elite accuracy, there’s an argument that another year under the Reich system and being coached up by quarterback guru Tom House, could help Brissett’s accuracy and his ability to throw receivers open.

Fourth Quarter play

This factor separates the good quarterbacks from the elite quarterbacks. Colts fans know it well after watching multiple fourth-quarter comeback drives with Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck at the helm. Not so much with Brissett under center.

While Ballard might say 2017 is a wash when it comes to evaluating Brissett, he must consider: the Colts had a lead in nine games that season, yet only won four games. The constant from those two teams, Brissett.

Looking at Brissett’s fourth-quarter stats, he completed 54% of his passes, threw for only 652 yards, four touchdowns and had a passer rating of 72. While it wasn’t all on Brissett, the Colts blew three fourth-quarter leads and had three games where he had a chance to take the lead late in the fourth and didn’t convert.

[lawrence-related id=39100,39106,39046]