INDIANAPOLIS – The adversity for the 2015 Colts has continued.
On Tuesday afternoon, the team announced that quarterback Andrew Luck will be sidelined two-to-six weeks with a kidney laceration.
"The injuries happened at the end of an early fourth quarter scramble (Sunday) when Andrew was doing everything he could to get us the win," Chuck Pagano said in a team release.
"Andrew was sore after the game and was feeling a little worse Monday afternoon so we sent him to get tests."
Following tests, Luck has a laceration in one of his kidneys and a partial tear of an abdominal muscle.
The Colts believe surgery is not required and full recovery is expected to be two-to-six weeks.
"It's way too early to guess how long Andrew will be out. We're going to keep listening to the doctors and evaluating his progress on a week by week basis," Pagano said.
For the second time this season, the Colts will turn to 40-year old Matt Hasselbeck. In 2015, Hasselbeck is 2-0 as the Colts starting quarterback with wins over Jacksonville and Houston.
This season, Hasselbeck is 48-of-76 (63.2 percent) for 495 yards, three touchdowns and zero interceptions.
The schedule after the Colts upcoming bye week is: @Atlanta (6-3), Tampa Bay (3-5), @Pittsburgh (4-4), @Jacksonville (2-6), Houston (3-5), @Miami (3-5) and Tennessee (2-6).
"We've got every confidence in the world in Matt Hasselbeck and we're not going to put Andrew back out there until he's healed and ready to go," Pagano said.
"Matt Hasselbeck will step right in again. He will do a great job, and we will win football games with Matt. Everybody's going to have to pick up their game when you lose a player, especially when you lose your starting quarterback. I got full confidence in everybody in this organization, in this building, top to bottom, coaches and players all coming together many, many times like we have before to overcome. We will overcome this, and Andrew will make a full-recovery. We all know that, and he'll be back in the lineup at some point."
The injury to Luck occurred on the first play of Sunday's fourth quarter. On a four-yard scramble, Luck was initially hit by Denver linebacker Danny Trevathan before defensive lineman Vance Walker came in to clean things up, hitting Luck in the back.
Despite the injury, Luck finished the game and led the Colts to the eventual 27-24 victory.
