The quarterback position is one full of scrutiny, hardship and criticism at every turn. It is also the most glamorous and rewarding position in football.
In today’s NFL, common logic is if a team’s quarterback fails, the team will fail as well.
Just this last season alone, fan’s witnessed only six teams using just one quarterback all season. While some players like Tony Romo and Joe Flacco were replaced due to injuries, the poor performance of quarterbacks like Colin Kaepernick, Nick Foles and Josh McCown saw their benching strictly due to poor performance on the field and helped result in numerous of losses for their team.
Recently, the Indianapolis Colts signed their star quarterback Andrew Luck to a six years, $139.125 million, with a total of $87 million in guarantees, making him the highest paid player in the NFL.
There has been much debate on whether or not Luck deserved the contract and the honors of being the highest paid player in the league.
The answer is clear. Luck deserves every penny.
Many naysayers will point out Luck’s last season were he put up mediocre number before going down for the season due to injuries.
However, since day one the Colts threw everything they had at Luck as he was asked to play the quarterback position at a graduate level. Often teams will ease new quarterback into their playbooks with simple bubble screens or quick one-read passes, yet for Luck he was trusted with audibles, protection calls and full-field progression reads.
Yes, Luck’s efficiency stats have taken a hit as his career completion percentage has dropped below 60-percent; however, those stats are largely deceptive.
This stat suggest Luck is an inaccurate quarterback, which just isn’t the case. Luck was accurate on 79.8 of his passes in 2015, which was sixth best in the league.
Evaluating a quarterback involves much more than just reading a box score. All too often do we see a passer do everything right on a play and still throw an interception because a wide receiver falls down, runs the wrong route or has the ball bounce off their hands.
For passers, process can be just as important as the result. And even if Luck’s results haven’t always been stellar, his process has been. Luck has already proven he has the skills to be a franchise quarterback and continues to flash signs of being one of the best of his time.
Luck was beaten to a pulp last season, but his process and skills will still continue to grow. While his contract extension will make it that much more difficult for the Colts to put a competent team around him, the Colts had to lock up the star quarterback.
The NFL has become a quarterback’s league and seeing what teams will do to get a franchise quarterback (ex. The Redskins and Rams trade for college stars Robert Griffin and Jared Goff) the Colts had a simply choice to make.
Whether Luck lives up to the contract or not will be shown in due time, however it is undeniable that the best chance the Colts have is with number 12 under center for years to come.
