Andrew Luck and the Indianapolis Colts are 0-2 after falling to the New York Jets by a score of 20-7 earlier tonight, and the loss was ugly enough that the team’s star quarterback needs something of a wakeup call.
Against a tough Jets’ defense, Luck completed 21 of 37 pass attempts for 250 yards and a touchdown, but he was also responsible for four of the Colts’ five turnovers in that he threw three interceptions and lost a fumble. Needless to say, with Spotrac listing his salary for this season as approximately $3.4 million and Indianapolis already having picked up his fifth-year option, worth $16.1 million, Luck needs to find some of just that if he wants any leverage in negotiating his next contract.
Granted, the Colts’ slow start does not mean Luck is in danger of not getting a new contract from the team. That could not be further from the truth. The former Stanford star and first overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft is easily the best quarterback the Colts have had since Peyton Manning (and the only one, not counting the 2011 season that saw Kerry Collins, Dan Orlovsky and Kerry Collins see time under center while Manning was injured), and led his team to an 11-5 record in his first three seasons while getting deeper into the playoffs each time. For his career, he has thrown for 13,450 yards and 91 touchdowns while also adding 949 yards and 12 touchdowns on the ground. On the whole, he is an incredible young talent whose future is getting brighter by the day.
On top of that, this isn’t the first time that Indianapolis has gone 0-2 to start the season under Luck. That also happened last season, with tough losses to the Denver Broncos and Philadelphia Eagles and given how Indianapolis rattled off six straight wins after that, there is every possibility that the same could happen this year.
That isn’t to say that Luck has played absolutely terribly this season and is 100 percent to blame for his team’s struggles. His first two games have come against two remarkable defenses, one that is currently coached by Rex Ryan and another that was built by the same man, and the lack of a strong running game to complement the passing attack on top of a shaky offensive line have certainly not helped matters.
This is what makes the Colts’ rough start borderline unacceptable. GM Ryan Grigson gave 32-year-old running back Frank Gore a three-year, $12 million deal in free agency that included $6.5 million in guaranteed money, veteran receiver and longtime Houston Texan Andre Johnson earned a three-year, $21 million contract with $10 million guaranteed, and left tackle Anthony Castonzo, the man who protects the right-handed Luck’s blind side, received a four-year, $43.8 million extension with $35 million in guaranteed money just before the start of the regular season. The rest of the team’s offensive line earns a combined $2.91 million in salary this season, be it due to experience level or overall skill, and the long and short of it is that Luck needs to rally both it and the running backs while also acknowledging his own mistakes if Indianapolis is indeed destined to take another step forward.
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