TEMPE, Ariz. — On a late October night in 2018, Andrew Luck drove home after a miserable Sunday afternoon. The Indianapolis Colts had just returned after a 42-34 loss to the New York Jets, dropping their record to 1-5. Luck, the franchise quarterback, could feel himself withdrawing, the last thing a team leader should do.
His cellphone rang. It was Jacoby Brissett.
Brissett, the Colts’ backup quarterback, told Luck he worked too hard. This team was too good. He told Luck he should call a team meeting. Luck was not in a good place, not in a position where he was ready to accept help. He couldn’t help but think: Who does this guy think he is?
Do Arizona Cardinals have murkiest QB future in NFL?
Robert Mays
The phone conversation lasted 20 minutes. Luck later told his wife about Brissett’s suggestion. Nicole Luck said she thought a team meeting sounded like a good idea. Luck contacted the other team captains.
“And by the third call, my whole demeanor and attitude had shifted,” Luck told The Athletic. “I’m like, ‘My God, Jacoby’s trying to help this team. He’s trying to help me. He’s challenging me.’ And he did it in a really digestible way.”
Everywhere Brissett goes, a similar feeling surfaces: There’s no one better to have in the locker room. Entering his 11th NFL season, the 33-year-old Brissett has played for six teams, which includes two stints with the New England Patriots. This year he is set to quarterback the Arizona Cardinals, the fourth time he will open a season as a starter. It’s been an interesting journey.
Luck calls Brissett not just a good teammate but an “elite” one. Former NFL head coach Bill Parcells, who has known Brissett since the quarterback was a teenager, said Brissett has a special knack for influencing the locker room. Other coaches and teammates, all the way back to Brissett’s college days at North Carolina State, have similar praise.
“He’s always been a leader wherever he’s been,” said Parcells, the Hall of Fame coach and two-time Super Bowl champ. “He just has that ability to round up the people and the charisma to influence them in a positive way. And he’s a dedicated team player that’s just interested in winning. He conveys that, and pretty soon people get to understand him pretty well. He’s just a remarkable young man.”
In a recent conversation, Brissett couldn’t pinpoint what makes him a standout leader. He simply tries to be the same person every day. He recalled the phone call to Luck. He knew how hard Luck had worked to return from the shoulder injury that had kept him out the previous season. He felt like the team needed to hear the determination and drive in Luck’s voice. But most of all, he wanted Luck to know he had his back.
Luck said it’s not uncommon for backup quarterbacks to offer suggestions like this. Earlier in his Indianapolis career, he was fortunate to have Matt Hasselbeck and Drew Stanton in his position room. But that was different, Luck said. Hasselbeck and Stanton were older, wiser. When Brissett suggested the team meeting, he was three years younger than Luck, “and I think for a younger quarterback, (that’s) very rare,” Luck said. After the team meeting, the Colts won nine of 10 to reach the playoffs. The team meeting wasn’t the biggest reason for the reversal, Luck said, but it was a factor.
Andrew Luck hugs Jacoby Brissett after a January 2019 playoff game. Luck praised his backup’s willingness to challenge him in their days with the Indianapolis Colts. (Peter Aiken / Getty Images)
Former NFL coach Matt Canada saw similar qualities during Brissett’s college days. Brissett began his career at Florida before transferring to North Carolina State, where Canada was offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Brissett couldn’t play his first year because of NCAA transfer rules. Nor could he travel with the team for road games. But that didn’t stop Brissett. He traveled on his own dime, often borrowing a friend’s Ford Explorer, to show up and support his teammates.
In the position room that season, Brissett led by example. Each week, Canada would have the quarterbacks turn in their favorite plays. What do you want to run on third-and-3? How would you rank these calls? Brissett turned them in even though he was ineligible to play.
“In coaching, you act like you’re one play away,” Canada said. “You say that to backups and all those things. And it’s real good talk. But Jacoby wasn’t one play away. He was no plays away. He couldn’t play. I’m just saying Jacoby lived it. He literally acted like he was going to start.”
At each stop of his career, Brissett has always found ways to connect with teammates. Once he took over at North Carolina State, Brissett would get on the team bus and hand out personalized, handwritten notes to teammates as he walked to his seat. During his time as Luck’s backup with the Colts, he rushed over to celebrate with the Indianapolis defense whenever it forced a turnover, photobombing as teammates posed for cameras.
“He’s a team-first guy,” said Anthony Walker, a former linebacker who played with Brissett with the Colts and Cleveland Browns. “It was never about, ‘Man, I’m not playing,’ or whatever. It was, ‘I want the team to do well.’ And when that happens, when you’re that selfless of a guy, good things tend to happen to you, right?”
None of this has been easy. As a rookie in 2016, Brissett was one of two quarterbacks who filled in for a suspended Tom Brady after the Deflategate scandal. In Indianapolis, he replaced Luck after Luck unexpectedly retired. In Cleveland, he stepped in after the NFL suspended Deshaun Watson for violating the league’s personal conduct policy. In Arizona, he replaced Kyler Murray, starting the final 12 games of the 2025 season.
This is where Parcells has helped. Brissett has known Parcells since his high school coach introduced them during the quarterback’s time at William T. Dwyer High in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Since then, the two have bonded to the point that Brissett no longer considers Parcells a mentor — “like, he’s legit my granddad,” the quarterback said, adding he lives just down the street from Parcells.
His conversations with the former NFL coach have taught him to “never shy from an uncomfortable situation,” Brissett said. It’s easy for backup quarterbacks to try to find a place where it’s easiest to get on the field. Brissett said Parcells pushed him to look at it differently. This may not be the best situation, but it might be good for you. It taught Brissett to try to learn more about himself and see how far he could push.
Bill Parcells and Jacoby Brissett talk in December 2017. The two have been close for much of Brissett’s life. “He’s legit my granddad,” Brissett says of the NFL coaching legend. (Don Juan Moore / Getty Images)
“He has a pretty good idea of what I think’s important — not that I’m anybody, I’m nobody — but I had a lot of experience in the business and we just got to be friends,” Parcells told The Athletic of their relationship. “I’m very, very proud of him.”
Leadership aside, the biggest knock on Brissett is his record. He is 20-45 as a starter. After he replaced Murray last season, he played well, averaging 280.5 passing yards per game, but the Cardinals went 1-11. At his first news conference of fall camp — after he signed a restructured contract worth $15.5 million that ended a holdout — Brissett was asked whether he had a message for fans about the optics of a quarterback coming off a dismal record asking for more money. Brissett, who had originally signed with Arizona at a rate befitting a backup, said he couldn’t care less — “Deal got done.”
“The wins and losses aren’t a reflection of who I am,” Brissett said when asked about this at the Arizona practice facility. “And (that’s) not just coming from me, but it’s coming from my teammates. I know my value.”
Ron Rivera coached Brissett during the 2023 season with the Washington Commanders. Rivera also interviewed for the Cardinals’ head-coaching position this winter, not long after the organization fired Jonathan Gannon. Before meeting with the Cardinals, Rivera watched film of Arizona’s 2025 season. Had he gotten the job, Rivera said he would have felt comfortable with Brissett at QB1. He liked his poise.
Sometimes, Rivera said, the quarterback’s not the issue. When he coached the Carolina Panthers, Rivera said the organization looked at several factors when evaluating quarterbacks. How’s the talent around him? Are they protecting him? Does the defense give him short fields? Or does he have to go 75 yards every possession?
With Kyler Murray gone, Jacoby Brissett starts the season as the Cardinals’ top QB, with a new contract following a holdout. “I know my value,” he says. (Norm Hall / Getty Images)
“From what I gathered as I watched (the 2025 Cardinals), it was very difficult because you’re behind,” Rivera said. “You’ve got to play catch-up, and the opponent knows you’re going to play catch-up. So 1-11, you’ve got to look at everybody, not just the quarterback.”
Despite the poor record, Brissett has made his mark in Arizona. Receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. said the quarterback is like a big brother, a “person we can go to about anything.” Tight end Trey McBride said Brissett barks at the defense after making a big play, particularly at star safety Budda Baker, which spikes practice competitiveness.
With a contract set to expire after this season, Brissett is probably a bridge quarterback, in place until the Cardinals figure out their future. He plans to make the most of it. To this point, his career has been a series of starts and stops, the life of a backup quarterback. As a starter under new coach Mike LaFleur, a decade into his career, he feels like he still has something to prove.
“I’ve moved six times in the last six years, so I feel like I haven’t played as much football as people say,” Brissett said. “A lot of these situations, I may have played two games here, three games here. It’s just like I haven’t had those opportunities, whatever the case may be. I feel like I’ve got so much football ahead of me.”