Andrew Luck: A Career to be Remembered

Andrew Luck:  A Career to be Remembered

Saturday August 24, 2019 the NFL world was shocked to its core when Andrew Luck, star quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts, announced his retirement from the league after a seven-year playing career.  Luck had said that the endless cycle of injuries and rehab was “exhausting” and that he couldn’t handle it anymore. There are some people that think that Luck abandoned his team before what many believed was going to be big year for the Colts.  On the other hand, Luck drew a lot of support from other parties such as Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman and his long-time wide receiver T.Y Hilton. These players have had their share of injuries and understand how tough the rehabbing process can be both physically and mentally.  

None of this changes the fact that Andrew Luck proved to be one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL during his short playing career.  In 2012 Colts legend Peyton Manning left the team and joined the Denver Broncos but before that he missed the 2011 season after getting neck surgery.  During that season without Manning the team struggled with a record of 2-14. Some say the team lost on purpose so that they could get the number one overall pick and draft the man people were calling the next John Elway.  

That man was Andrew Luck from the University of Stanford.  This comparison wasn’t to far off. Luck’s playmaking ability and overall pose in the pocket was everything the Colts could have dreamed of.  In his rookie season Luck took a 2-14 team and turned them into a playoff team in one season by throwing for 4,374 yards and 23 touchdowns in his rookie year.  These numbers only grew in the coming years and the team made the playoffs the next two years until tragedy struck and the cycle of injuries that Luck referred to in his speech began.  

Andrew Luck played in only 7 games in 2015 and while playing 15 games in 2016, he played hurt at the end of the season.  This injury kept Luck out for the entire 2017 season. The Colts missed the playoffs from 2015 – 2017. He came back strong in the 2018 season and the team came back making the playoffs once again.  Andrew Luck never got to play in the Super Bowl but that does not mean he didn’t have an incredible career. He definitely deserves our respect and admiration for being so dedicated to the game against all the injuries he went through.  The tragedy in all of this is that Andrew Luck is gone too soon, and we will never know what could’ve been. But we do know that Andrew Luck had a career that could only be described as awesome.  

-By: Ryan Johnson