Andrew Luck

mjp28

@hoorta said:

You don't need to be a super star to be set for life anymore- if you're careful with your money. Just being a hanger on nets you a pension after a few years. And the top minimum after 9 years is $900k. Know my niece's cousin was able to do that playing special teams and retired a few years ago.

True. If you have a brain cell left in your head and are wise with your money it's like hitting the lottery if you can make a team at any position. And signing bonuses vary but can make some players an instant millionaire. From one of my favorite sources spotrac:

Each year the NFL minimum salaries increase by $15,000, up to $495,000 for a rookie in 2019. A player’s minimum salary is determined by his years of experience (YOE), ranging from 0 to 10 or more. The chart below shows the minimum (P5) salaries a team can contract a player to based on Years of Experience (credited seasons).

Yrs.	2017	2018	2019	2020
0	$465,000	$480,000	$495,000	$510,000
1	$540,000	$555,000	$570,000	$585,000
2	$615,000	$630,000	$645,000	$660,000
3	$690,000	$705,000	$720,000	$735,000
4-6	$775,000	$790,000	$805,000	$820,000
7-9	$900,000	$915,000	$930,000	$945,000
10+	$1,000,000	$1,015,000	$1,030,000	$1,045,000

VETERAN MINIMUM BENEFITS

When qualified, a player with four (4) or more years of NFL experience can earn his total minimum salary, but have a cap figure that reflects two years of experience – or in 2019, $645,000. The contract must be for only one year, and must not contain combined bonus money (signing, roster, workout) that exceeds $90,000.

Orion

I don't think that the Colts will be tanking. I think they will turn to Brissette and see if he can be the QB of the future.

Canton Mike

@orion said:

I don't think that the Colts will be tanking. I think they will turn to Brissette and see if he can be the QB of the future.

I wouldn't bet either way. Irsay is a snake in the grass & who knows what may happen there.

Mike

The Gipper

@orion said:

I don't think that the Colts will be tanking. I think they will turn to Brissette and see if he can be the QB of the future.

He has played pretty well. I don't think that he will be in like the Top 20 QBs in this league, but he can be a starter and play decently. How far they go depends a lot of the quality of the rest of the team.

The Colts HAVE done a lot to put quality players around Luck...now they are going to have to rely on the supporting cast to pull the show together and not the star.

All that being said...Fuck them. Let them lose. Their tank job to get Luck was a despicable display of poor sportsmanship and in a sense was the best example of what can be wrong with the NFL these days.....letting teams tank. Fuck them. Lose. I remember when they had their division sown up, and they were playing someone who the Browns were fighting with for a playoff spot. This was 2007. They tanked that game, denying the Browns a chance to make the playoffs. Refused to play Peyton...instead played like Curtis Painter at QB. It was the worst example of a lack of integrity in the game that I have seen. So, nothing that team suffers breaks my heart....albeit that I did like Luck and thought he could be special. It wasn't against him, but that organization.

runyon27

I just found this whole thing shocking, when I first saw this last night I thought it was a joke or a mistake. Luck was a good dude, it will be interesting to see if his body gets healed up if the football itch returns and decides to unretire.

hoorta

@the-gipper said:

He has played pretty well. I don't think that he will be in like the Top 20 QBs in this league, but he can be a starter and play decently. How far they go depends a lot of the quality of the rest of the team.

The Colts HAVE done a lot to put quality players around Luck...now they are going to have to rely on the supporting cast to pull the show together and not the star.

All that being said...Fuck them. Let them lose. Their tank job to get Luck was a despicable display of poor sportsmanship and in a sense was the best example of what can be wrong with the NFL these days.....letting teams tank. Fuck them. Lose. I remember when they had their division sown up, and they were playing someone who the Browns were fighting with for a playoff spot. This was 2007. They tanked that game, denying the Browns a chance to make the playoffs. Refused to play Peyton...instead played like Curtis Painter at QB. It was the worst example of a lack of integrity in the game that I have seen. So, nothing that team suffers breaks my heart....albeit that I did like Luck and thought he could be special. It wasn't against him, but that organization.

Yes Gip those of us old enough remember the moving vans pulling out of Baltimore in the middle of the night. Not like Indy didn't deserve a team, not just that team.

Couldn't happen to the Browns? well it did. Why I hope nothing but continual losing to Carpetbaggers Kroenke (Rams), Chargers (Spanos) and the Rovin' Raiders with Davis.

Tour2ma

Which QB injury was it that "Browns fans" cheered?

Anywho... my two initial reactions to this news:

Is it April 1st?
Eli Manning has a new home.

Best wishes to Luck on the rest of his life. Tough decision... just because it may be the right one does not make his decision any easier.

BaconHound

Understand why he retired and am ambivalent.

The Gipper

@baconhound said:

Understand why he retired and am ambivalent.

Maybe you need to undergo 4 years of constant pain. Then you might not be so ambivalent.

mjp28

@the-gipper said:

Maybe you need to undergo 4 years of constant pain. Then you might not be so ambivalent.

That is very true someone told me once years back. "pain can make anyone a coward". I totally believe that now.

The Gipper

@mjp28 said:

That is very true someone told me once years back. "pain can make anyone a coward". I totally believe that now.

Well, you should know, based on what I understand what you have endured with all of your hospital time. Was the problem you were in their for very painful?

As I hope that Unsympathetic would not be that so much toward your circumstance.

mjp28

@the-gipper said:

Well, you should know, based on what I understand what you have endured with all of your hospital time. Was the problem you were in their for very painful?

As I hope that Unsympathetic would not be that so much toward your circumstance.

Yes very plus in the 10 hospital trips I had from 2015-2019 some were lengthy stays 7 requiring rehab.

In 2015 I got very sick and lost 63 pounds down below my high school weight 50 years earlier. I almost didn't make it back......you learn a lot from those experiences.

There are 40 year old former football players who have to walk with two canes or some who can't remember how to get home.

Easy to judge sometimes.

laiccm

I'm sorry....dude just did a very selfish move. I understand wanting to retire and retiring because of all those injuries................but don't tell me he had 0 idea pre-draft. Dude is very smart and educated...He knows what a QB means to a team and Jacoby is a back up....Dude could've rehabbed half the season and be welcomed back with open arms and let everyone know this is his last year. Colts fan had every reason to boo.....

flyingfooldoug

@laiccm said:

I'm sorry....dude just did a very selfish move. I understand wanting to retire and retiring because of all those injuries................but don't tell me he had 0 idea pre-draft. Dude is very smart and educated...He knows what a QB means to a team and Jacoby is a back up....Dude could've rehabbed half the season and be welcomed back with open arms and let everyone know this is his last year. Colts fan had every reason to boo.....

With those kind of fans, I’d quit too. Cleveland fans have booed our losing QBs. But never booed a winning QB. Slighting a winner is pretty shaky. You guys deserve Irsay.

gumby73

merge...than boo me!!

MLD Woody

You're wrong.

There was no excuse to boo

Luck apparently told the owner weeks ago

calfoxwc

I'm think, that Luck would have decided before the draft, to help his team, but didn't really know til later.

The more he found out about what other players have been saying about injuries... and dealt with his own...

he just didn't want to go on with any more injuries - . Good luck to him.

TexasAg1969

@laiccm said:

I'm sorry....dude just did a very selfish move. I understand wanting to retire and retiring because of all those injuries................but don't tell me he had 0 idea pre-draft. Dude is very smart and educated...He knows what a QB means to a team and Jacoby is a back up....Dude could've rehabbed half the season and be welcomed back with open arms and let everyone know this is his last year. Colts fan had every reason to boo.....

I can tell you that after knee surgery for a torn medial meniscus I desperately wanted to come back to racquetball again and rode a bicycle 15 miles a day up and down hills to rehab. But it took me about two months of trying to come back (4 months first on the bike) before I had to admit I was hurting the other knee in trying to protect the one that had healed. I was very lucky that after a year from then on I was asked to play again by my son in law after having spent that year on that 15 mi. a day ride. So now I play again but with the knowledge I am one injury away from bicycles permanently.

It's very hard to give up something you have done and love most of your life and you first have to conclude you just can't do it on the level required. And for pro QB's it's just not the same as an amateur RB player. Tough decision for Luck to make with $$$$$$s to have to leave on the table tempting a comeback. I won't fault him for hanging on to hope as long as he could. Real self-competitors are just made that way.

jrb12711

@mjp28 said:

BINGO, we have a winner!

The NFL is truly a brutal business that's why they are going overboard to try to protect the quarterbacks and wide receivers. For every player who makes 10, 15 or even 20 years there are many who get hurt in training camp or year 1 or 2 in the game.

Good luck Luck in your new career behind a microphone or maybe just fishing.

For sure, I just wonder if this sort of thing will cascade more in the coming years. The first people that came into my head were the Bosa brothers. Came from a good (wealthy) family, have the tools to earn big deals in their mid 20's. Why not walk away from the game after 8-ish seasons? $100 something million bucks and already having a base makes it, in some ways, almost an easy decision. Gronk just did the same thing really.

There some dudes who will want to die on the field, but I'm just not nearly as sure this generation feels that way.

Nero

@laiccm said:

I'm sorry....dude just did a very selfish move. I understand wanting to retire and retiring because of all those injuries................but don't tell me he had 0 idea pre-draft. Dude is very smart and educated...He knows what a QB means to a team and Jacoby is a back up....Dude could've rehabbed half the season and be welcomed back with open arms and let everyone know this is his last year. Colts fan had every reason to boo.....

Of course it was selfish. I expect the retirement of somebody to be a selfish move. It's football, not the war.

I can see him not knowing till a few weeks ago. Pre draft he still had plenty of months to recover and get into perfect football shape. Time has gone by, and he has kept feeling pain, with another season of fighting through pain getting closer and closer.

Andrew Luck

VETERAN MINIMUM BENEFITS

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