Andrew Luck has consistently kept the Indianapolis Colts in games with his stellar play, but even he can’t do enough to carry the Colts in 2016.
The 30-14 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 8 is just a continuation of a bad trend for the Indianapolis Colts. It was yet another game in which the team looked like it simply didn’t want to win. And it was another game where Andrew Luck was left hung out to dry.
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Call it bad coaching or call it a lack of execution or whatever else you want, the fact of the matter is that the Colts—the former AFC South powerhouse—are at 3-5 and look to languish in third behind the Houston Texans and Tennessee Titans. This is unacceptable for a team that is at least a contender on paper every year.
It has to be frustrating for a team like the Colts to continue to slowly sink. It must be especially frustrating for quarterback Andrew Luck who has been doing everything in his power to will his team to victory. He’s pushing against some serious weight in doing so.
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Coming into Week 8, Luck was the most sacked quarterback in the NFL with 25 sacks. The Chiefs tacked on six more to bring his total to 31, which puts him on pace for 62 sacks in the season. That kind of beating is rare in the NFL (Blake Bortles has led the league the last two seasons at 51 and 55). It’s also the kind of beating that will limit a quarterback’s ability to win you games.
And yet Andrew Luck continues to deliver. Amidst all of the adversity and all of the struggles surrounding the Colts, Luck is having arguably the best season of his career. His interception percentage (1.4 percent) is the lowest of his career, his 7.5 yards per attempt average is his second highest, he’s completing a career-high percentage of his passes (64.9 heading into Week 8), and he’s on pace for 32 touchdowns, which would be his second best mark ever.
As Sam Monson notes over at Pro Football Focus, outside of Luck, the Colts aren’t doing much. He highlights a cavalier attitude about fixing the offensive line because Luck can work with anything. This is true but it also leads to another point. Despite being absolutely beat into the ground in 2016 and despite the drops that his receivers almost continually deliver, Luck is having a strong season. He’s working his way through the kind of adversity that kills careers—like that of David Carr—and doing so with aplomb.
In the modern NFL, it’s common to say that a team is only as good as its quarterback. In the Colts case, the team is almost literally the quarterback. Luck is the only thing keeping the ship from sinking.
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Something needs to change in Indy if they want to ensure they have Luck to power through the rest of the season (unlike last year when he was beaten into submission and injury) and into the coming years. If the team is serious about re-assuming its spot atop the division, they need to get Luck some help. He can’t do it all alone.