He was hurt, torn ligament in the thumb of his throwing hand. No way he would have been on the field if we had a single other quarterback to run out there.
Report: Jacoby Brissett has torn thumb ligament, faces surgery
Except that's not true at all. Brissett lives by the short pass because the short pass is what he had to work with. TY Hilton is the only guy I'd trust to take a deep throw on that entire roster, and he was hurt half the time.
Frankly, Brissett gets an incomplete grade as a passer in my book.
For one thing, Brissett's season as a whole was tale of two halfs, the first half in which he was a leader in TD/pick rate and his team was on a 10 win pace, including a marquee win against the Chiefs, and his second half, when he was wearing a knee brace after Von Miller throw his OL into him, which can happen to literally anyone.
For another thing, Brissett never had a consistent receiver unit from one game to the next, and that's really hard to get on the same page with your guys when you don't have continuity in the room.
Besides that, Brissett really wasn't called on to carry the offense. Frank Reich said in week 1 that this would be a running team first and foremost. And the Colts run attack was easily top 5, with Brissett mostly set up to take care of the ball and manage the game.
The only times Brissett was called on to air it out was when the run attack wasn't working, and he was usually successful at making something happen. Again, despite the spit-and-bailing-wire WR unit.