Bengals at Colts, 7 p.m. Thursday, WXIN-59

INDIANAPOLIS – Eight months into the stupid thing, we still don’t know the story with Andrew Luck and the Indianapolis Colts’ quarterback situation. But at least we know how to tell it: with a wink and a giggle, not a snarl and a growl, because this situation – this story – is a comedy.

Which is a nice way of calling it a joke.

The whole thing has become so ludicrous that on Monday someone in the media – OK, it was me – was calling Colts coach Chuck Pagano a liar to his face, and I was able to do it with the most sincere smile you’ve ever seen. No, here comes a more sincere smile: from Chuck. Because with the cameras rolling, someone (handsome) has just called Pagano a liar – and Pagano is smiling because he knows it’s true.

This is the awkward reality show where we live today, media and NFL coaches, and it’s no different in other NFL cities. Coaches lie. NFL media report the lies. The scene in Indianapolis starts Monday with me asking Pagano about Luck, who only recently started throwing the football eight months after shoulder surgery, and hasn’t thrown yet in front of media. Roll on 3, 2, 1 …

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When Andrew throws the football behind closed doors, I’m asking Chuck, how does he look?

“I’m never there to see,” Chuck says, “so I couldn’t tell you.”

Literally, you’ve not seen Andrew throw the ball?

“No,” he tells me. “Most of the time he’s in the training room, we’re in meetings, doing such. I kind of stay in my lane.”

Based on the track record around here, I’m telling Chuck, and based on how incredible that answer is to believe, I don’t believe you’ve not seen him throw.

“Well,” Pagano says, big smile, “you’re entitled to whatever you want to believe.”

There was more, and we’ll get there in a minute, but first: a refresher of the stakes for the Colts, and the missteps they’ve made along the way.

The Colts open the 2017 NFL season on Sept. 10 against the Los Angeles Rams. That’s 13 days from Monday, the day Chuck Pagano was professing to have not seen his franchise quarterback, the highest-paid player in the NFL as recently as last summer, throw the football after surgery on the labrum in his right shoulder. If Luck doesn’t play against the Rams, and I’m going to go ahead and say it – he won’t play against the Rams – the Colts will start Scott Tolzien or Stephen Morris.

That situation, too, seems comical. Morris was the Colts’ best quarterback not named Andrew Luck last preseason, and he has been their best quarterback, period, this preseason. Pagano says Tolzien (19-for-29 for 217 yards, one interception, no TDs) is getting the first-team reps, but he won’t talk about Tolzien without talking about Morris as well. They're still competing, looks like. So, on the bright side, the Colts haven’t publicly ruled out Morris (36-for-51 for 348 yards, one TD and no INTs) starting the opener against the Rams. On the downside, they haven’t publicly ruled out Tolzien, either.

But that’s a temporary situation, Morris or Tolzien at quarterback, so let’s get back to Luck. Well, hang on. How do we know it’s that temporary? Nothing about Andrew Luck’s shoulder injury has gone the way you’d think, starting with the fact he injured it three games into the 2015 season and didn’t have surgery for 15 months, even after a lacerated kidney knocked him out of the season’s final seven games that year, giving him all the time he needed to take care of the shoulder. Instead, Luck went into 2016 with a shoulder so vulnerable, he wasn’t able to throw every day in practice. And he played that season with a shoulder so sore, he needed pain injections to play games.

This is how the Colts have treated their most valuable commodity.

A joke, I tell you. This whole story. Including owner Jim Irsay’s bizarre news conference Aug. 13 when he compared Luck’s labrum to that of New Orleans Saints QB Drew Brees, whose shoulder was so devastated in 2006 that world-class surgeon Dr. James Andrews required a new method to put it back together. Irsay then called Luck’s surgery “a simple labrum repair.” So he’s lying or he’s clueless, and it’s possible he’s both. Check out the deceitful way this franchise, including Luck, has handled this injury.

More:Fifteen months of Andrew Luck's secret pain

When Irsay wasn’t comparing Luck’s “simple labrum repair” to the most unusual labrum repair in Dr. James Andrews’ surgical career, he was admitting the Colts considered signing another quarterback. But the money wasn’t right, so Colts General Manager Chris Ballard didn’t sign the guy – or anyone else.

Look, finances can decide who plays linebacker or running back or any other position, really. But finances decided who will play quarterback for the Colts? Laughable. Hope you’re laughing.

Now, back to Monday. And let’s set it up from the beginning, with IndyStar Colts reporter Zak Keefer talking to Pagano about the approaching regular-season opener, and wondering if the team has to “prepare with the idea Tolzien is your starting quarterback.”

Pagano: “Um. It’s a great question. You guys are trying to find a way to get to the end result here. Almost got me.”

So now I’m butting in and asking Pagano: Does that mean you know "the end result" and are keeping it from us?

“I don’t know,” Pagano says. “There’s no timetable.”

Behind me, Keefer is incredulous. But there is a timetable, Zak says. There’s a game.

“We realize that,” Pagano says.

A few minutes later – after I’ve told Pagano I don’t believe him, and after he has smiled in response – another reporter asks Pagano if “the odds are slim” that Luck will play against the Rams.

“I’m not a bookie,” Pagano dodges. “I’m not an odds-maker.”

Now, IndyStar Colts Insider Stephen Holder is trying: Are you operating under that assumption?

This being the farce it is, I jump in and answer for Chuck.

He’s not a surgeon, I say, using "operating" the way Pagano used "odds": as an excuse to dodge the question.

“Thank you,” Chuck tells me. “That’s a great quote. Great one. Appreciate it.”

Part of the team now – it’s me and Chuck against all these media jackals – I do him a solid and move the questioning away from Luck. Hey, we’re done talking about 12. It’s not like either one of us has seen him throw, you know? So I’m showing grit and asking Chuck about the final preseason game – noting that starting quarterbacks normally don’t play in the final exhibition, but conceding that this situation is not normal. So how, I’m asking my colleague Chuck Pagano, will you handle Tolzien and Morris against the Cincinnati Bengals on Thursday?

“That’s something we’re going to have to discuss at length, and make a decision,” he says, an answer that kicks me off his team and back on the side of the media jackals.

But you know the answer to this, I’m telling Chuck. You know the answer.

Chuck responds with his most truthful comments of the day.

“You’re a great writer,” he tells me, a quote you might see again, “and I have great respect for you. And now you’re a mind reader.”

I lean into the Colts coach, poke him softly with my notebook, and tell him two truths: I like you, I say. Just doing my job.

“The feeling’s mutual,” my pal Chuck tells me.

“Sometimes,” Holder chimes in.

Whatever, Stephen. You media jackals are getting on my nerves, you know that? And how dare anyone question whether Chuck Pagano, with the season opener approaching in 13 days and Scott Tolzien listed as the starter, has watched his surgically repaired $140 million quarterback throw a football. Pagano has meetings, and he’s doing such, and whatever “such” is, you can believe this: It’s a lot more important than whatever 12 is doing.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at facebook.com/gregg.doyel.