Andrew Luck comfortable as the Colts' face and cornerstone.
by Ben Smith
Begin with the shoes. There are four or five pairs, all athletic shoes, every species from cross-trainers to plain knockabout sneakers. Left where their owner dropped them, they spill out of Andrew Luck's locker in a haphazard spray, and after a few seconds it comes to you that this looks like–the perfect chaos of a teenager's closet.
Say hello to the man who carries the Indianapolis Colts' future in his back pocket. “It's in all of our offices, every single office up and down the hallways: A big circle with ‘Protect 12' (Luck),” Colts head coach Pagano says. “As long as 12 is upright and on his feet, we've got a much better chance of winning than losing.”
The conclusive evidence turns up everywhere these days, on the backs of kindergartners and teenagers and grown men whose wardrobe changes reflect the changing times.
Once upon a time, they all wore Colts jerseys with 18 on the back, for Peyton Manning. Now the number du jour is 12, for Andrew Luck.
A year after showing up as the NFL's surest bet for quarterbacking stardom in perhaps 30 years, Luck has become both the public face and absolute cornerstone of a franchise that is accustomed to winning. Under Tony Dungy and Luck's certain Hall of Fame predecessor, Peyton Manning, they made the playoffs nine straight seasons, won at least 12 games seven straight times and played in two Super Bowls, winning one.
But Dungy has retired and Manning is now in Denver, and this is Luck's team now. Wherever the Colts go from here begins in the locker between those of offensive lineman Samson Satele and running back Vick Ballard, where both the untidy pile of shoes and the neat stack of binders and iPads on the shelf above open a window into who Andrew Luck is.
To start with, he's not Manning, the Grim Scowler whose on-field intensity was legendary. “Oh, he's much more laid back,” says Colts placekicker Adam Vinatieri, who knows all about high-end quarterbacks, having played with Drew Bledsoe and Tom Brady in New England and Manning in Indianapolis. “Peyton was very, very serious all the time. Very intense, until after the game when we're on the bus or something. He kind of calmed down and it gets a little more fun.”
“I think Andrew's more just enjoying it like a kid. It's a kid sport to him. He goes out there and (it's like) ‘I'm having a good time, I'm gonna run around and throw this ball around,' where Peyton was more serious about it,” says Vinatieri.
This may explain why Luck was such an immediate success, and the Colts with him. One year after winning just two football games, they went 11-5 and made the playoffs yet again, and Luck's kid-like tendency not to get caught up in the moment was a big reason why. Seven times, he led fourth-quarter drives to secure victories–the most ever by a rookie and the most by any quarterback since the NFL and AFL merged in 1970.
In addition, the Colts' 11 victories with Luck at the helm were the most by a No. 1 overall draft pick in NFL history, and his 4,374 yards passing were also the most for a rookie quarterback in NFL history.
Little wonder that the Colts spent much of the offseason, and a significant amount of money, shoring up an offensive line that got Luck sacked 43 times last season. They also brought in two more weapons in running back Ahmad Bradshaw and wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, and hired as offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton, Luck's offensive coordinator in his college days at Stanford.
“I think Ryan (Grigson, the Colts general manager) and his staff have done such a great job,” Pagano says. “Prior to bringing these guys in, they did a great job evaluating. We talk about all the time finding guys with ‘Horseshoe' traits, so they're bringing in the right guys. And then having that veteran leadership that we have in our locker room that's already in place, the culture, the environment. All that stuff that's already in place, these guys really have no choice but to buy in.”
Luck, for his part, bought in immediately. And then some. “When he walked into the very first training camp, the very first meeting, the very first OTA (optional training), he just kind of owned the huddle, owned the field,” Vinatieri says. “He was calling plays, and they're like, ‘Oh, hold on a second, we're not even supposed to be there yet.'”
And now, with a season under his belt, he comes to 2013 as the undisputed leader of a team looking to duplicate or exceed last year's 11 wins against a tougher schedule.
“He's taken it to another level,” tight end Dwayne Allen says. “His control and command in the huddle is superior now. You feel it whenever you get in the huddle. If it gets a little chatty, he's not afraid to tell people to shut up.”
“I think that everything has obviously slowed down for him,” Pagano says. “The things that he saw last year, he's recognizing now. He's managing things better, he sees things and he understands.”
Luck acknowledges as much. “Much more comfortable,” he says. “Having a year under your belt … I think it's easier to work on football. You're not worrying about forgetting someone's name, or knowing where the meeting room is or being late to something. So, a lot more comfortable.”
Matt Hasselbeck was a rookie quarterback with the Green Bay Packers, playing behind the legendary Brett Favre, when his quarterbacks coach, Andy Reid, told him something he'd never forget. “He was like, ‘Listen, I'm not here to work on your mechanics, your fundamentals',” says Hasselbeck, who's 37 now and Andrew Luck's backup. “‘You're not gonna learn that from Brett either. What you need to do and work on are the things people like to call intangibles–how you speak in the huddle, how you are in the weight room or around the building.'”
Hasselbeck looks across the locker room. Andrew Luck is answering questions in his stocking feet. He looks comfortable. He looks in command. He looks like a man with his intangibles stacked as neatly on the shelf as all those playbooks, a man ready to lead the Colts back to the playoffs again–no matter how many fourth-quarter comebacks it takes.
“I think the team is comfortable with it because we practice it a lot,” Luck said, after leading yet another in the Colts' season-opening win against Oakland. “Coach Pagano makes it a point of emphasis, all the different situations. There's a Pandora's Box sort of, with situational football and end-of-game and end-of-half things. We practice those a lot, (so) you know what you're trying to accomplish.”
And then you go out and do it. It's an unfazed attitude from a profoundly unfazed young man who, when you ask him what was the toughest adjustment from the college game to the pro, doesn't mention anything about the actual playing of the game.
“The length of the season was interesting,” he replies. “In college you play 13, 14 games I think, and then you're playing the four preseason games, the 16-game regular season schedule, and then we played a playoff game last year. So the length of the season was eye-opening.” Hardly anything else seems to have been.
