INDIANAPOLIS — Some of the best college football players looking to make it to the NFL will be in Indianapolis this week for the NFL Combine. It’s the 33rd straight year the Circle City is hosting the event.
There have been rumors that the NFL is looking to move the Combine to a different city, but Colts owner Jim Irsay says he will do all he can to make sure it stays in Indy.
“If you talk to general managers, if you talk to head coaches, if you talk to team doctors, they say no one does it like we can do it here,” Irsay said at a press conference Sunday afternoon. “We’re excited to have everyone come to town. It’s a centric place here in the Midwest where people come. And it’s important to us. It’s a big economic impact for this city. We don’t take that lightly.”
The other big topic Irsay talked about in his press conference was the quarterback situation surrounding the team.
The 2020 NFL Draft in Las Vegas is two months away, and the Colts have many options — Keep Jacoby Brissett after a disappointing 7-9 season, sign a free agent quarterback, or draft a rookie.
Irsay echoes what Head Coach Frank Reich and General Manager Chris Ballard have recently said about Brissett.
“Jacoby is on the rise, and you gotta give him time to develop,” Irsay said. “We go 7-9, and people act like the world is coming to an end. We had a lot of injuries, special teams wasn’t outstanding, and the combination of those things, with Jacoby being a starter for the first time, is a lot to overcome.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean Irsay is all in on Brissett. He says the team is weighing all the options.
“If Jacoby can, you know, have a much higher ceiling and excel, that’s a possibility. If we draft someone, that’s a possibility. And maybe not even in the first round. There are a lot of great players out there.”
Irsay says on Draft Day, he asks a lot of questions that are answered by Reich and Ballard, and then let them make the decision. But he says for the quarterback position, all three of them will make a decision together because of how big of a decision that can be.
Irsay isn’t turning down the option of signing a free agent quarterback either.
“You know me, I’m never shy on spending (money),” he said. “It’s just that you have to understand our biggest problem is going to be how do we fit all the guys under the cap (space), not how much room we have.”
