Tom James
Special to the Tribune-Star
INDIANAPOLIS —
Curtis Painter has learned not to concern himself with what other people may think of his abilities as a National Football League quarterback.
The former Purdue University signal caller, who was a sixth-round draft choice of the Indianapolis Colts in 2009, has not taken to heart the booing that he heard when he entered the Colts’ next-to-last game of last season.
Painter, after a promising preseason, struggled in relief appearances against the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills. After replacing starter Peyton Manning midway through the Colts’ final regular-season home game with the Jets, he was greeted with catcalls by many of the team’s usually faithful fans.
His performance didn’t help matters any. A Painter fumble led directly to a New York touchdown and helped contribute to a 25-19 loss (the Colts’ first of the season). He wound up completing 4 of 11 passes for 44 yards and an interception.
A week later, in the final regular season game of the year, the former Vincennes Lincoln quarterback connected on just 4 of 17 passes for 39 yards and had another interception. Buffalo wound up winning 30-7 in a game that was played in a snowstorm.
Heading into the offseason, plenty of people wondered whether Painter could ever be a productive quarterback in the NFL. Some of those questions may have been answered when the Colts opted not to re-sign veteran Jim Sorgi, who wound up moving on to the New York Giants to compete to be Eli Manning’s top backup.
Despite his late-season problems, Indianapolis coaches and player personnel officials still had faith in Painter. And now that the Colts’ voluntary organized team activity practices and mandatory mini-camp workouts have been completed, he appears to be the first in line — ahead of second-year quarterback Drew Willy, rookie Tim Hiller and recently acquired Tom Brandstater — to become Manning’s primary understudy this fall.
Indianapolis head coach Jim Caldwell is confident Painter’s confidence will continue to improve heading into training camp.
“Anytime that they get into their second year, where they’ve had a chance to really immerse themselves within the concepts of our [offensive] system, you can see some improvement. I can see he’s a little bit more comfortable in execution, in terms of his play calls and checks [at the line of scrimmage] and things of that nature,” Caldwell said Friday after the final OTA practice of the summer.
“He has a little bit better grasp of his read progressions and he’s becoming a bit more accurate. All those things, I think he’s seeing improvement year-by-year. But, as you recall, it’s not a real easy offense to grasp and to manage. But I think he’s improving day after day.”
Any worry about Painter’s psyche after being on the receiving end of the brickbats being thrown his way late last season?
“No. He’s very a resilient guy. And the other thing is, he knew the [booing] wasn’t necessarily being aimed at him. It was more aimed at me than him. So that was something that I made certain that he understood,” the Colts coach said. “I don’t think it will any effect on him in that regard.”
• New quarterback in camp — The Colts were awarded Brandstater, a former sixth-round draft pick by Denver in 2009, after he was waived by the Broncos on June 4. He was officially added to the Indianapolis roster three days later.
The 6-foot-5, 220-pound signal caller completed 584 of 989 passes for 6,857 yards, 47 touchdowns and 32 interceptions while playing at Fresno State. He was deemed expendable by the Broncos after the team drafted former Florida quarterback Tim Tebow in April.
“We have not had a great opportunity to look at him, other than seeing him on film in previous years. But we’re certainly happy to have him. He’s a guy that’s got strength and size, he’s smart. So we threw him in a little bit in terms of drill work [this past week] so we could watch him from a mechanics standpoint. He looks like he’s got some potential. We’re excited to get a chance to take a real good look at him in the fall,” Caldwell said.
“He’ll be in that [offensive] playbook. When he first arrived, I stuck my head into one of the quarterback meeting rooms and he was in there with Painter actually going over the details, trying to learn as much as he could, a little extra [study] time. That’s the great thing about our guys, they share information. They work with one another, trying to bring the new guys up to speed. And that’s certainly what will be going on with him here over the next few weeks.”
• Good workouts — Despite the completion of group offseason practices, individual work will continue until the start of training camp on Aug. 1.
“[Work] continues,” Caldwell said. “That’s one of the things, that I think, is a misconception, that once OTAs end that the work is stopped. But we continue to work all the way up until training camp. They’ll lift, they’ll run. They’re still working at their routes and coverage techniques, just trying to find a way to get better.
“We got a lot accomplished [in the OTAs and minicamp]. I really do believe that. Schematically, the things that we changed and that were new, we were able to get familiar with those things. I think we improved in terms of overall execution. I think our team has a real strong work ethic. But this is an eager and hungry group. And I think that overall, we improved almost in about every single phase. Not to the point where we say where we’d be ready to play [a game] tomorrow. We don’t have to get started until later on this year. But I felt good about what we got accomplished.”
