During the turn of the 2010s, the Indianapolis Colts found themselves in a rare position. They were blessed with the opportunity to graduate from an aging quarterback who was already a Hall of Famer, to the most anticipated prospect in years. But looking back across the Colts teams of the last decade, a perennial championship contender quickly shifted into one of the biggest “what-if”s in recent sports history. The front office's ineptitude is what led to this turn, but the franchise’s beloved QB was the one who paid the price. But to pinpoint what went wrong, due diligence must be paid to the circumstances surrounding the career of Andrew Luck, and how the city of Indianapolis failed him.
After 14 year starter and NFL icon Peyton Manning was forced to miss the 2011-2012 NFL to injury, the Colts found themselves holding the #1 overall pick (thank you Curtis Painter) in that year’s draft. The decision was made to move on from the aging Hall of Famer, in no small part due to the 28 million dollar bonus Manning was set to receive on March 8th. Manning was cut on March 7th, 2012, and was given the chance to ride off into the sunset in Denver, and Indianapolis was given a chance to usher in a new era of football in Lucas Oil Stadium.
All attention turned to the draft, where the Colts would select their heir apparent at the QB position. In 3 seasons as the Stanford quarterback, Andrew Luck grew to be considered a franchise changing talent, and a “pro-ready complete package”. After the Colts naturally selected Luck that April, the expectations for him in Indy were understandably high. Even for those expectations, Luck seemed to excel, making the Pro Bowl and leading the team to an 11-5 record in each of his first three seasons as the signal caller. His postseason success peaked in year 3, making the conference championship before falling to the eventual champion New England Patriots. Still, Luck was considered to be elite, and the Colts were hailed as contenders for a Super Bowl. After that 2014 season, Andrew Luck was about the only thing giving Indianapolis any semblance of success.
The front office sniffed success in 2014, and seemed to spin out in the following years, trying to acquire that one missing piece that could put them over the top. The issue with this is that the strategy of using high picks to take long shot players at skill positions proved to be borderline masochistic when your offensive line was rated as the second worst in the league back when Luck entered in 2011. With their young cornerstone emerging as a star in the league, Indianapolis failed to build a line capable of keeping him upright. Instead, their first round picks were used to draft Björn Werner, or Phillip Dorsett, or in the case of 2014, used to trade for noted bust Trent Richardson.
As a result, entering the 2018 season, Luck had been sacked 156 times in just 70 games, and eclipsed 40 sacks in both 2012 and 2016. In return, Luck was hurt. A lot. He missed over half of the 2015 season, battled through 15 games of a 2016 season which saw him visibly in pain, and missed the entirety of 2017. The Colts had waited too long to prioritize drafting replacements for Peyton Manning’s former O-Line, only drafting Ryan Kelly as a mainstay in 2016, and not overhauling the line as a whole until 2018. But by then, the damage had been done. The Colts had taken their young QB with the golden arm, and turned him into an injury prone star with a glass shoulder.
After having his labrum repaired during the 2017 season, Andrew Luck returned to form in the 2018 season, taking home comeback player of the year. His career had become a time bomb though, always ticking closer and closer to the next big injury. In preparation for the 2019 preseason, Luck suffered more injuries that would cause him to miss a significant chunk of the regular season, and effectively snuffed out any love for football he had left. How could anyone blame him? He was injured or playing through immense pain ever since his 3rd year in the league. Could you really hold it against a guy to not put himself through that anymore?
Well, some people could. In the first paragraph I said that the city of Indianapolis failed Andrew Luck, not just the front office. After news that Andrew Luck planned to retire leaked during a preseason game, Luck was booed off the sideline. In that instant, the fans that he had been putting his body on the line for since he was a rookie had turned on him, booing and taking to Twitter to say that he quit on his team. Luck was forced to give a tearful press conference well before he was ready to, because of the timing of the leak, and the reaction to the news. Rather than scorn the organization that had failed to protect a bright young star, fans blamed the star himself for losing all will to compete.
Andrew Luck was a young QB with no shortage of talent.A fringe elite QB when healthy with all the intangibles a team could ask for, perhaps the biggest shame is that his legendary will to do whatever it takes to win wasn’t given a chance to shine. He would do anything to secure a win, but that kind of grit doesn’t help a team when he’s on the sidelines in a cast. While Luck enjoys retirement, the Colts are attempting to reverse engineer a similar situation in Carson Wentz. May he fair better than Indy’s fallen hero, Andrew Luck.
Stats and Rankings compiled from Pro-Football Reference’s database
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