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PHILADELPHIA – The only remaining option for the Indianapolis Colts Sunday afternoon, after four points from Philadelphia, a 46-point ball, five seconds from the end of the game, was to bring the ball back to the ground. That's why Jacoby Brissett, who had not taken a shot all day, ran into the field.
"It took me a second to figure out what was going on," said Andrew Luck, who started the other 40 Colts passes in the game. Once Luck understood what was going on, he accepted it and he watched, as everyone else did at Lincoln Financial Field, when Brissett threw the ball about 65 yards to the back of the end zone. where he bounces. hands before falling to the ground.
End of game, Colts losing 20-16, while Carson Wentz played his first Eagles game in nine and a half months, winning his third game in 20 months. For the quarterbacks and their teams, it was a slogan game, much played in the pouring rain, and the absence of Luck at the end was both obvious and quite reasonable.
Luck has escaped from the last season after a serious shoulder injury over a year ago, a fiasco flouted by all parties that left him emptied and isolated. His former teammate, Matt Hasselbeck, who played with Luck for three seasons in Indianapolis, had the habit of telling Luck, he missed a long time, that it would be the most miserable experience of his life. Last week, the two telephoned and Luck told Hasselbeck how much he was in a hurry.
"It's a physical struggle," Hasselbeck, now an ESPN analyst, told a phone interview. "It's probably even more of a mental struggle. And you are not part of the team.
Luck came back this healthy and strong season and in what Hasselbeck called a better state of mind, without being embarrassed by the doubt and frustration that had consumed him, and more comfortable with what he is, as a player and a football player. Before his shoulder injury, Luck could have thrown that ball where she needed to go. Then, maybe he could not.
"I'll be honest, I do not know," Luck said after Sunday's loss. "In this situation, I do not know if I could have."
When quarterbacks come back from an injury, the mind remembers what he wants to remember. The natural inclination is to assume that their recovery represented nothing more than ellipses, an enticing break between the touchdowns, and that they would continue to escape the defenders and launch impossible shots. More than any other quarter, Wentz looks like Luck, tall and strong and mobile, an improvisational maestro capable of extending games within their structure.
Upon returning from the torn ligaments of the knee, Wentz completed 25 of his 37 passes for 255 yards, absorbing five sacks while sometimes demonstrating a veritable madness. In the second quarter, after Wentz had dipped for the first goal, coach Doug Pederson did not retreat. "Nice standard," said Wentz.
In the third and ninth position of Indianapolis 36, in the 11th minute and fourth quarter of the Eagles, crowned by a 4-yard touchdown run by Wendell Smallwood, Wentz moved away from two Colts defensemen in the pocket and beat pass to Nelson Agholor for the first run.
"That's the guy I was waiting for," said Zach Ertz, who caught five passes for 73 yards. "I did not expect him to come here and panic just through the movements."
The Luck, who emerged from his three-year injury, recalibrated his style of play, spending on average less time in his pocket – 2.33 seconds, according to Pro Football Focus, through the first two games of the season. He finished more passes, a gain of 68.5%, but earned the least yards per attempt in his career, a lean 5.3. And in three quarters of Sunday, Luck had 26 assists, completing 15 passes for just 80 yards.
"There have been times when we have called things on the field," said Indianapolis coach Frank Reich. "But when we do, it's kind of a touchdown-checkdown mentality: think deeply, and if it's not there, check it out."
Bruce Arians, who coached him as a rookie, said last week that Luck had impressed him in his first two games this season: a loss to Cincinnati, a fumble and a win in Washington. Arians got an NFL Game Pass subscription specifically to review his former student's gameplay.
"He has the speed," said Arians, now an analyst at CBS, in a phone interview. "He has the precision."
Evaluating his performance on Sunday, Luck lamented that the Colts scored only one touchdown in five games in the red zone. how they turned two Wentz turnovers into Philadelphia territory into simple field goals; and how in the penultimate race of the Colts, with two games of the 4 Eagles and a touchdown necessary to win the game, he failed to connect with TY Hilton on a background and was returned by Derek Barnett. Disappointed after being tackled, Luck hit the ground with his fists.
As he later spoke, Hilton wore a T-shirt with a sketch of luck and a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson who said, "I am a big believer in luck".
With regard to the Eagles regarding Wentz, the position of the Colts has not changed. They believe in him and Luck believes in himself.
"I will continue to work so that my arm reaches a throw of 80 meters," Luck said.
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