Just like some of his seasons in the NFL, the Andrew Luck era is being forced to an early end. The Indianapolis Colts quarterback is retiring due to being “mentally worn down”, per NFL Insider Adam Schefter. This comes in the wake of Luck dealing with an ankle injury in the preseason and leaving his Week 1 status up in the air. For Luck, it’s truly a sad turn of events for one of the game’s premiere talents.
While he was originally expected to announce it on Sunday in a press conference, the news actually broke during the Colts’ preseason game against the Chicago Bears. This caused a swarm of boos from the fans once the game ended.
Andrew Luck was drafted number one overall by the Indianapolis Colts as the heir apparent to Peyton Manning. It didn’t take long before he came in and rewarded the franchise with this decision. Luck went 11-5 his rookie year, throwing for 4,327 yards, 23 touchdowns and 18 interceptions. It put them in the Wild Card, in which they lost to the Baltimore Ravens, 24-9. The next 2 season Luck would get the team to the playoffs, where he would get playoff wins over the Kansas City Chiefs, Cincinnati Bengals and Denver Broncos. He even got so far as the AFC championship in the 2014 season, where they lost to the New England Patriots. This was also the same season in which he had career highs in passing yards and touchdowns. But in 2015, it all went downhill.
Following their AFC title appearance, Luck suffered a should injury during the season as well as a lacerated kidney and sat out after Week 9. Right before the 2016 season, there was some concern about Luck’s shoulder but was quickly dismissed. However, he missed one game that year because of a concussion. The 2017 was the most damaging of his career. Despite having shoulder surgery in January of that year, the Colts shut him down that year, a decision that was made official in the middle of that season. He was able to return in 2018, leading Indianapolis to a playoff win over the Houston Texans before being bounced by the Kansas City Chiefs. This season, he has currently been dealing with an ankle injury that was supposedly running into the calf, per Colts GM Chris Ballard.
Just only 3 years after their former franchise quarterback retires, the guy that the Colts signed to replace is making his own exit. A lot of analysts and commentators are bragging on Jacoby Brissett as being a capable backup, but he might not be their long-term choice. Indy could just play the season out with him and hope to tank well enough for a good pick. They have some good pieces in place right now but it might not be enough to be really competitive for this year.
The career of Andrew Luck is going to be one that a lot of football fans will look back on with “What if” in their eyes. The 4-time pro-bowler was a nightmare for defenses with his ability to throw out of the pocket but also his tendency to run on crucial moments. This decade has certainly seen quite a few players retire either around the age of 30 or right before it; but Luck was a player of a higher caliber that you would consider to be around for a while if not for him living on an injury list. Part of that can be contributed to the Colts not putting a quality offensive line around him. In fact, in 2016, the year before he sat out a season, Luck was sacked 41 times, which was the 3rd most total that season. The following season, his backup, Brissett, was sacked 52 times, which lead the league.
Getting hits to your body is part of the game of football; but your mind can get affected as well. It had to be mentally exhausting for him to feel like he’s making so much progress health-wise, only to turn around and face another setback that is slowing down his career. When Luck got drafted, he was heralded as one of the best prospects of all time and his career looked like it was living up to that hype. Unfortunately, being hurt derailed all of that and that can be a sickening feeling for anybody. In life, if we’re on a fast track to success doing something that we love, and getting paid for, it’s going to be crushing if something happens where you are constantly knocked off that journey. You want this to kind of be like Derrick Rose, in the sense that Rose was injured at the height of his career; however, he eventually recovered and became a viable player that can empower a lot of teams, despite not having his explosiveness he once had. Yet, it’s not in the cards for everybody to go through that muck and come out smelling just as sweet as before. That’s a hit that takes a lot of time to recover from and adjust to. Sometimes people never really grasp that, but hopefully for Luck, he has done so and is making a decision that will heal him physically and mentally.