With the start of the 2019-2020 NFL season mere weeks away, the big news to come off the gridiron was the seemingly abrupt and out-of-nowhere announcement by Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, that he was retiring from football.
At a still young 29, this comes as a shock to many, as lots of star quarterbacks are typically capable of playing well into their late-30s, and you look at Tom Brady whom at age 42 is coming off of his sixth Super Bowl, and it seems to believe that Luck is walking away way early. Obviously, he has his own reasons for making this decision, but the reactions have definitely varied throughout the world of sports fandom.
Obviously, there are lots of enraged fans, mostly out of Indianapolis and/or are fervent fantasy football players, at the thought that their franchise quarterback and/or stat printer would have the audacity to abandon ship and leave them in the middle of the ocean. These people are the ones who are blasting comment sections across the internet to opine how selfish and stupid Luck is, abandoning Indianapolis, the fans, and how stupid he is to be leaving a kabillion dollars on the table by walking away early.
And then there are fans like me, who stand and applaud Andrew Luck for walking away while he still has his head, (most of) his health, and a world of potential ahead of him to mold and shape the rest of his life ahead of him that doesn’t have anything to do with football. Sure, he’s probably leaving a tremendous amount of money on the table by calling it quits now, but if there’s one thing that’s always been the primary adjective for Andrew Luck is that he’s smart; I think it’s safe to assume that of the nearly $100M he’s earned in his career, not including endorsements, Luck is going to be just fine throughout the remainder of his life financially, and I’d wager he’ll be just fine being a physically mobile and capable millionaire now, instead of being a physically addled, hobbling, brain-mushed multi-millionaire in ten years.
I always love it when professional athletes leave on their own terms, and not being forced into retirement by injury or old age. Especially ones like Andrew Luck who obviously have a lot left in the tank, but just don’t feel like putting their bodies on the line in order to bilk more money out of a machine that they’ve already gotten more than enough out of in the first place. Even if it means the teams they depart are left high and dry, it’s still admirable to me when a guy realizes that not everything is sports and money and has goals and ambitions outside of sports, and makes the bold decision to pursue them instead of letting themselves wreck their bodies in pursuit of what may never come.
I’ve always been a fan of Andrew Luck, since he was the man back at Stanford. I’ve always admired intellectual players who valued their educations and were obviously at the colleges they played at because they wanted the education, and not as just the athletic ringers they were brought into be in the first place. And even though it was Luck himself that completely annihilated Virginia Tech in the 2010 Orange Bowl, I still had great admiration for him when he passed on entering the NFL draft in order to return for his senior year, and stated that it was to finish his degree, and not to pursue a national championship.
Had he left Stanford after his junior year, he would’ve very likely had been the first pick in the draft. Turned out that another year in college didn’t change anything, and he ended up going #1 anyway after graduating from Stanford.
Everyone else knows about his professional career, how he was picked by the Colts, and showed so much promise, the Colts saw fit to release Peyton Manning in order to hand the reigns to the younger Andrew Luck. And although Luck never won a Super Bowl, the Colts eclipsed the ten-win mark four times and made the playoffs in each of them. And as long as Luck was on the field and relatively healthy, the Colts were always contenders.
But I think what fascinated me the most with Andrew Luck was the suspicion that I had that despite how stellar of a quarterback he was, I actually didn’t really get the impression that he actually liked football. Off the field, Luck was kind of this intellectual weirdo in my opinion; he was kind of a private guy that didn’t seem like he fraternized with his teammates that often, and he’s said in interviews that when not in practice, he makes efforts to get as far away from football as he can. He’s an avid concert goer, and I lost my shit when he had several cameos in Parks & Rec, but the overlying impression that I always got from Andrew Luck was a guy that always saw football as more of a job than a definition.
It’s like, teenage Andrew Luck, being the brainy kid he probably was, sat down with mom and dad and created a general plan for life, that would yield the greatest potential for earning, which would in turn lead to the greatest potential for living a successful and bountiful life. It just to turned out that Andrew Luck just so happened to be really good at throwing a football, and they decided to head down that path to see what would happen. Jim Harbaugh and Stanford came knocking, and it seemed like it was the right choice.
While at Stanford, Luck was probably the student athlete that still went to every class despite the fact that most of his teammates probably didn’t, and was probably anonymous while in it, at least until his junior year when he really broke out. But even becoming a star probably didn’t change anything, and I imagine Luck was the guy that tuned everything out while he was in class, because he clearly saw the value in education, and a Stanford degree could open all sorts of doors in the distant future that maybe even “good athlete” might not.
And then the NFL was just all part of the career plan, and Luck continued to play football, because that was in his job description. It just so happened that he was pretty good at it, and the Colts went 11-5 in each of his first three seasons. As the big boy money started pouring in, the plan really began paying out in fruition. But then the rigors of the job began piling up throughout the years, with broken ribs, a punctured kidney, probably a concussion or two along the way, and suddenly the realization of not actually needing to keep working probably began creeping into Luck’s mind.
Presumably, now was the point where Luck and his family realized that Andrew had made around $100M in his playing career, and that just how much more money did he even need to make? Clearly, the answer was $0, because that’s why Luck just up and retired.
Either way, kudos to Andrew Luck and happy trails for a retirement well-deserved, on his own terms. Not bad for a guy that saw professional football as merely a job. I love that he’s walking away from loads of money and to tons of criticism and basically giving no fucks about any of it. Life’s too short to be in the rat race, and for a guy that’s already made more than enough money to not be in it at all, why continue working, especially when staying in only means putting your body through more hell?
