Andrew Luck: The Decision

Photo by AJ Mast/AP

Written by Sam DeCoste

Just seven months ago, the Colts were in Kansas City facing the Chiefs in a Divisional Playoff, having won ten of their last eleven games in a comeback tour to make it back to the Super Bowl. Colts quarterback Andrew Luck didn’t play like himself, and his performance left a lot to be desired against the top seeded Chiefs. Luck only completed nineteen of 36 passes for 203 yards and one touchdown pass, in a 31-13 loss for the Colts. While the result was disappointing, Indy was trending in the right direction going into Andrew Luck's eighth season in the NFL. With Luck back under center, the sky was the limit for the former number one overall pick out of Stanford, and he finally had a chance to contend for a championship. But nobody, not even Luck himself, would’ve thought that would’ve been his last rodeo.

The Low Down

On Saturday night, Adam Schefter reported that Andrew Luck intended to retire from the NFL just two weeks before the start of the regular season. In a press conference last night, an exhausted Luck stated, “I’ve been stuck in this process [of rehabilitation]. I haven’t been able to live the life I want to live. It’s taken the joy out of this game...the only way forward for me is to remove myself from football.”

Over his seven year career, Luck has thrown for 23,671 passing yards, 171 touchdowns, and tallying Pro Bowls. Luck’s best season came in 2014 when he threw for 4,761 yards, 40 touchdown passes, and he led the Colts to an appearance in the AFC Championship, the farthest the Colts have progressed in the playoffs in his career.

Photo by CBS Sports

Luck’s body has taken a beating throughout the years, which has kept him off the field for long stretches. He missed half the 2015 regular season due to a concussion and a lacerated kidney. He played hurt through the 2016 season, and he missed the entire 2017 season after shoulder surgery to repair a torn labrum and a sprained AC joint in his throwing shoulder. He was fine last season, won Comeback Player of the Year after a prolific individual season, but he’s been on the injury report since May with a calf problem. Luck found himself in the same position from years past, and the continuous cycles of rehabilitation drained him physically and mentally, and sabotaged his love for football.

It’s Not All About the Money

The only number you need to see to realize just how dark the days have been for Luck in rehab is the amount of money he is turning down to walk away. Fifty eight million dollars. I’d be lucky to make that much money in a lifetime, and Luck was slated to make that in the next three years. Andrew Luck is a football guy, he loves the game more than anything. The guy has a freaking flip phone and it’s 2019. All he’s ever wanted was to play football. It’s his identity. But the injuries, the rehab, the struggles he has faced have damaged his body and his soul to the point where not even 58 million dollars were enough to make up for the anguish and the pain of playing any longer.

Fans of the Year

This news completely shell shocked the league, including the fans, players, coaches, and most of all, the Colts organization. Remarkably, the news broke during the Colts preseason game at home against the Bears. Luck was on the sideline when Schefter’s report broke, and the stadium found out for themselves that Luck decided to retire. It created one of the strangest, most surreal atmosphere and scene none of us have ever seen. Luck didn’t even get the luxury of telling his teammates or coaches himself. It had to come from the fans saying they saw Schefter reported it on Twitter!

The Colts have a reputation of being of the league’s most passionate fan bases, and most of the fans support their team the way it should be done. But the fans who booed this man, they need to face themselves in the mirror and see what could make them so insecure that they would send Luck off the way they did. Luck gave his blood, sweat, and tears into Indianapolis and the Colts organization. He’s battled concussions, a torn shoulder, and even played with a lacerated kidney, and to be repaid with a chorus of boos in his final appearance at Lucas Oil Stadium is shocking. This is worse than when Eagles fans tried to deliberately burn their city to the ground.

If the Colts plummet this season, and they don’t find the next Manning or Luck to replace him, it would be nothing less than what Colts fans deserve at this point.

Is He Gonna Pull a Favre?

When Luck says he doesn’t think he will come back, I believe him. Fans and pundits like to believe that a player will come out of retirement after a certain period of time away from the game because they will miss it too much to stay away, but there’s a reason Luck has had enough. His body has taken a beating over the years, and he’s put it on the line to help the Colts win when he should have been rehabbing severe injuries.

Photo by Indy Star

It also wouldn’t make sense for him to come back. Sure, I would selfishly love to see an elite quarterback like Andrew Luck back on the field because the NFL is better with him in it. But he made a decision on his terms before the choice was out of his hands, and we should respect that. The franchise he laid his body on the line for neglected his health for years, and nothing would change if he returned.

One Super Bowl in 20 Years

In twenty seasons, the Colts have had Peyton Manning, and Andrew Luck, two of the top quarterback prospects ever to come into the NFL, but Indy only won a single Super Bowl title in that span, in the 2006 season. After Manning was released by the Colts following his devastating neck injury, the Colts selected Luck first overall in the 2012 NFL Draft hoping that he would lead the charge for Indy for the next ten to twenty years, and contend for Super Bowls every year. Although the Colts made four playoff appearances in Luck’s short career, they were never close to bringing the Lombardi back. Their rosters over the years have consistently been dry of talent on the offensive line and the whole defensive side of the ball.

Obviously, the root of Luck’s injuries stems from the offensive line. In his first three seasons alone, Luck was sacked 100 times, and a career high 41 times in the 2016 season, which led to him missing the entire 2017 season. If the world’s best sports fan base wants a scapegoat, it’s gotta be former Colts General Manager Ryan Grigson. His inability over a four year period to protect Luck from the hits, the sacks, the injuries, the pain, the anguish, has cost a very talented quarterback his Hall of Fame career. Luck’s decision to retire by itself makes former Colts General Manager Ryan Grigson the worst GM in the NFL in the last twenty years.

What Did We Learn?

• The Colts aren’t winning the Super Bowl. 
• Colts fans officially suck (the ones who blame and boo Luck) 
• This is all Ryan Grigson’s fault. 

Luck has always been one of the classiest, most down to earth guys in football out there, which makes this news incredibly devastating retire before ever playing in a Super Bowl, winning an MVP, or a proper sendoff into the sunset.

Let this be a message to the league. Quarterbacks are hard to find in the NFL, but for the teams lucky enough to have one, you’ve got to protect them, or their careers, their bodies, and the long term future of the franchise will suffer. 

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