Andrew Luck was the perfect quarterback. He had all the physical gifts and intangibles you’d want in a signal caller, and he was putting up the numbers to back it. And yet, he tragically retired at 29 years old.
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The story of Andrew Luck’s early retirement can be traced all the way back to when the Colts held the number one overall pick in the 1998 NFL draft.
With that pick, they selected future Super Bowl winner and Hall of Famer Peyton Manning, who quarterbacked the team till 2010. The 2011 season then becomes pivotal for defining the Colts’ future.
Peyton Manning would undergo surgery to fix a herniated disc in his neck. The surgery helped with his neck, but immediately, his arm strength went down. Manning then re-herniated the disc and underwent a second surgery. After the second surgery, his arm strength was too low to let him play football.
Manning missed the entire 2011 season, and that’s when the Colts made a franchise-altering move. Coming into the 2012 draft, Andrew Luck was touted as the greatest college quarterback prospect since, well, Peyton Manning himself.
Given that the Colts were likely to be in contention for the number one overall pick (this was quickly confirmed as the team failed without Manning, finishing 2-14), rumors started to swirl that Indy might give up their franchise star. When the Colts were confirmed with the number one pick, they made the move to let go of Manning in hopes of a bright future with Luck.
The Colts moved on from Peyton Manning to draft Andrew Luck in 2012. Here’s how the QBs fared since then.
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Why did Andrew Luck retire so early?
Luck was, in a way, doomed by his team. More than the physical burden that Luck suffered through, the physiological factor played a larger part in his retirement.
“I felt stuck in it,” he solemnly said. “And the only way out is to no longer play football. It’s taken my joy away.”
Luck was beaten up during his career. He was one of the toughest quarterbacks in the league, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he was taking a beating every single time he walked onto the football field.
Across his first 70 games, Luck was pressured on 1,111 of his dropbacks, and he was sacked a league-high 156 times. In 2015, Luck played through rib and kidney injuries.
In 2016, his shoulder, thumb, and ankle couldn’t take it anymore, and he suffered a concussion. Luck missed all of the 2017 season rehabbing his injuries. The truth was, the Colts never invested in the offensive line. Luck should never have been hit as much as he was.
It was only in 2018 when the Colts figured out their offensive line rotation, but by then, it was too late. Luck had dealt with 40 different offensive line combinations in his first 83 starts. Almost every other game he was going in with a new group.
Luck should have had the glory Manning did with the Colts, but alas, it was never meant to be.
