Friday, July 20
MAKING AN IMPRESSION

By John Oehser - Colts.com

Quarterback Betts Tries to Carve Out Niche with Colts
INDIANAPOLIS – Josh Betts’ situation isn’t easy.
Then again, he said, he’s a young quarterback trying to make it in the NFL. He really doesn’t expect it to be easy.

Betts, a first-year veteran, spent last season on the Colts’ practice squad. When training camp begins on July 29, he will be trying to make the active roster on a team that in recent seasons typically has kept two quarterbacks.

Peyton Manning, a two-time NFL Most Valuable Player, is the Colts’ starter.

Jim Sorgi, a fourth-year veteran, is currently the backup.

Not an easy situation, Betts said.

But Betts also said he tries not to see it that way.

“It’s all mental,” Betts said during the Colts’ recent summer-school program, which concluded in mid-June at the team’s Indianapolis training facility.

“Really, what I can do is take it to a point where they like me enough they don’t want to lose me, where if something happened to Peyton or Sorg they’d be comfortable with me to where they can’t take the chance of cutting me and letting me get picked up.”

That would mean the Colts deciding to keep a third quarterback, something Colts Head Coach Tony Dungy said this off-season is a possibility, but also something the team has not done on a regular basis during this decade.

“It’s tough, because they’re one of 10 teams that didn’t carry a third last year, and they haven’t, really, in the last three or four years,” Betts said. “They talk about it every year, the chances of possibly carrying a third. There’s a risk-reward to it.

“Really, I try to play well enough when I get my chances. That’s really all I can do.”

Getting chances hasn’t been easy for Betts. Or for any reserve quarterback on the Colts, for that matter.

Manning, one of the NFL’s most durable, reliable quarterbacks, never has missed a start in nine NFL seasons, and has missed just one play in his career because of injury. He also typically takes a majority of the repetitions in practice, and those he doesn’t typically are taken by Sorgi.

Last season, with veteran Shaun King also on the training camp roster, Betts said he didn’t take a repetition during training camp.

“The first snap I took in the Bengals game (the Colts’ preseason finale) was the first snap I had taken in seven-in-seven or team (drills) in a month,” Betts said, laughing. “It made you a little nervous, more so because you don’t know how you were going to react – how I was going to be out there.

“Everything you learned really was mental in the last month and half. It was tough, but it all came back and it wasn’t too bad out there. It made you a little nervous before you got in there, waiting to see how you’re

going to react to it.”

Betts didn’t throw a pass in the preseason, which he said made this year’s off-season particularly important.

“Knowing how limited your chances are, any time you can get out there and play is nice,” Betts said. “I always enjoy coming out with the rookies. Now, having a year in the offense under my belt, it’s nice to get out there and be more comfortable and really start to play ball again.”

Betts, who signed with the Colts as a rookie free agent shortly after the 2006 NFL Draft, played collegiately at Miami (Ohio) University, completing 541 of 929 passes for 7,029 yards and 54 touchdowns with 30 interceptions in two seasons as a starter.

He spent three seasons as backup to Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, “but I’ve never been in a situation where you don’t get any reps,” he said.

Betts spent the off-season getting as many repetitions as possible. Once camp begins, he said, no matter where he on the depth chart, practice time likely will be limited.

“It (the regular season) is very similar to training camp,” Betts said. “Even Sorg didn’t get reps. He only takes a few snaps a week. Sorg and I did lot of work on our own, preparation and stuff – helping him (Manning) out, but also working.

“You have to approach it that way. Two or three days before the Super Bowl, Sorg banged up his ankle. You have to be ready. If something happens, I go in if Peyton goes down in the first quarter. You always have to be ready, because it can happen very quickly.”

While Betts said not playing – even behind an established quarterback such as Manning – is difficult, he said the season was hardly a waste. He is young, and still learning, and he said there are few better places to learn than in the Colts’ offense.

“There’s so much I learned throughout the season,” Betts said. “You learn week by week. More so than anything, it was just getting comfortable with the offense and getting it to where it’s just second-nature now and you’re not just trying to think of the word, then the play, then what the guys are doing. You’re familiar enough with it where it comes natural and you’re more comfortable in the pocket.

“That helps so much and what I learned in preparation week by week is going to help me when I do get the chances to get in there and when defenses are giving me different looks and different blocking assignments.”

And that, Betts said, should help in a situation that he said isn’t supposed to be easy, and really never is.

“Until you get out there, it’s all mental, but even the physical part, when you’re more comfortable, you can stop thinking so much,” Betts said. “You can just get back, be comfortable throwing the ball and trust yourself more.”