Andrew Luck has been on Injured Reserve since the beginning of November after an almost endless odyssey with his shoulder injury, so his season is over. The next steps for the quarterback and the Indianapolis Colts are now in the stars, as no reliable prognosis is yet possible. SPOX analyzes the situation around the quarterback, examines the medical record and sheds light on how the misery came about.
Injuries can affect the course of franchises and decide whole seasons. The Indianapolis Colts are one of the franchises that can tell you this story, and they will be remembered with painful memories of Peyton Manning’s farewell from Indy: In 2011, Manning missed the entire season with a neck injury that required four operations.
The Colts crashed completely and got the first pick in Draft 2012 as a consolation for the messed up season. This became Andrew Luck, the most promising young quarterback in decades – since Manning. It was intended to usher in the next era of colts and thus seamlessly move away from the Manning era.
In addition to the usual “Growing Pains”, the project also got off to a promising start. But in the meantime, however, Colts 2017 is facing a similar situation to 2011. The only difference: this year, the backup quarterback in Jacoby Brissett doesn’t seem to be quite as overwhelmed as Dan Orlovsky and Curtis Painter at the time. However, the results are similarly weak. And unlike in the past, separating Luck and a new beginning is not an option. Luck’s only 28, after all.
But how did this delicate situation in Indy come about? The exact beginnings are not quite clear. However, it was reported that it all began with Luck injured his shoulder in Week 3 in 2015. At that time, it was said to be a compression and there was no structural damage. As a result, Luck then only missed two games with the injury. The end of the season took place without him, however, because he was badly injured later on (ribs fractures and a punctured lung). The shoulder, however, was officially no problem.
At the beginning of the 2016 season, the rumor spread that Luck was suffering from signs of wear and tear on a joint lip in his shoulder. The then still acting General Manager Ryan Grigson, however, referred this to the realm of fables:”No. He’s all right. He just threw a million balls. The media have seen it.”
And team owner Jim Irsay, who is generally very eager for information, also added:”There is no chronic shoulder injury or something of this kind, I promise you” Before Week 4 in London, Irsay took up the subject again:”There are no operations planned. Afterwards, Irsay even put forward a bold thesis:”This shoulder story is something that will disappear if he wins his next MVP award or the next Super Bowl.”
At this point it should be mentioned that Luck only missed one game in the 2016 season – due to a concussion. His shoulder was always mentioned in the Injury Report, as he had only limited or no training on Thursdays, but everything looked good on the course. He threw 31 touchdowns with only 13 interceptions and a register rating of 96.4. In addition, he achieved a pass rate of 63.5 percent – his best career figure.
So are you all right? Not quite. After the season, Irsay suddenly announced via Twitter that Luck had undergone shoulder surgery. This was the first time that Luck had publicly confirmed that he had been dealing with the injury since September 2015. This was a circumstance that had been consistently veiled up to then. The most important sentence in Irsay’s statement:”He will be fit for the season” was the 2017 season. Which now runs without him.
This did not cause much excitement at the time, after all it was only January. The start of the season was still a long way off. The meanwhile new GM Chris Ballard also emphasized from the beginning that Luck will be ready for the start of the season. Nevertheless, Luck ended up on the Physically Unable-to-perform List (PUP) in the camp for the first time, so he was only allowed to participate to a limited extent. He was also present during the minicamps and OTAs, but did not play snaps.
Even ten days before the start of the season, Irsay reaffirmed that Luck for Week 1 had not yet been written off. And so he was finally on 2. He was activated by the PUP on September 9 after passing a medical check. Otherwise, he would have been out of action for the first six weeks of the season, which you didn’t want to risk. After all, the start of the season was still based on the assumption that there were no alternatives to the Colts: The Colts were as short-sighted as before Manning’s final season.
The end of the story: the optimistic forecasts fell into the water, with Jacoby Brissett finally being replaced by a trade from New England. On the 17th. He made his debut in September.
Luck didn’t return to practice until the beginning of October. Ballard promptly set the course:”We will lead him slowly this week in practice. We’ll see how much he can do. But our plan is to get him back into team training at some point. And when we reintegrate him back into the team, we’ll get him back on the field.
On the 18th. October, Ballard announced an update:”Luck will not be training today and this week. Injured Reserve, the season’s end, was not an option, however, as the team was still planning to return.
29. October: Jay Glazer from FOX Sports reports that Luck has complained about shoulder pain since his litter program a few weeks earlier and is now seeking further opinions from external physicians. Four days later, the Colts Luck finally set their sights on IR – that’s it for 2017.
“I wish it would be better for me and I’d be at 100 percent this season, but that’s not the case,”Luck then put it on record:”I know I’ll emerge stronger from this. I know that this will make me a better quarterback, team mate, man and player. And I look forward to the future.”
The 5th. On November 11, Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network reports that Luck should not throw for at least two to three months. And the latest reports suggest that Luck has meanwhile gone to Europe for further treatment: A possible stem cell treatment, which is banned in the USA, is in the pipeline. Other big names in American sports such as Kobe Bryant or Peyton Manning have already gone down this road in the past. The next important appointment will be in December, when another checkup with the doctors is scheduled, as Chris Mortensen of ESPN announced.
What happens next is not foreseeable. However, it brings us to another important point: Luck’s contractual situation. Such situations inevitably lead to automatism in the NFL, to look at the worst case and to think about an exit strategy. What if Luck didn’t come back? Or if he does get fit, but can no longer tie in with old achievements?
Certainly no one in Indy wants to put that into words. Internally, however, the topic is likely to have been raised.
Page 1: How Andrew Luck’s status quo came about
Page 2: Lucks contractual situation and comparisons with Manning