What Andrew Luck means

Given the circumstances, Andrew Luck did not play for the Detroit Lions. The Colts QB franchise retires less than two weeks before the start of the NFL season. There is already a crowd of people, to know the idiot fans of ColtsHe is ready to punish Luck for his timing, but Luck is not the first NFL player to withdraw from the sport in what should be his heyday, and he will not be the last. The list goes on and on: Barry Sanders, Calvin Johnson, Patrick Willis, Chris Borland, Jason Worilds, Pat Tillman, Tiki Barber, Robert Smith, Vontae Davis, Lynn Swann, Gale Sayers, Jim Brown and now the chance . His short career has been successful – including the second-largest return in playoff history – but his legacy will still be incomplete.

Luck has always been a prime candidate for cutting his own career, given both his injury history and his affection (GASP!) For outside interests, including architecture. These outside interests were not enough to prevent the Colts from writing the chance, perhaps because these outside interests were not of a political or demonstrative nature, or perhaps because his father, Oliver , was also a respected football man, or maybe because luck was physically. speaking, as well built to withstand the rigors of football as anyone could be.

But I guess the Colts have relied on the chance of being a lifer in the sport because he was extremely talented and because he was a voracious football lover himself. Do not go too far to find evidence of this love. Luck was the guy who WOULD want to be hit by opponents, because it helped him get his legs back to the game. That's how crazy he was for the sport. The fact that he feels like he had no choice but to finally give up NOW, just when his team and the general public would feel the most his anger, hinted that he had little hope of being able to change his mind. This was not a choice. It had to be done.

And while the NFL will manage Luck's retirement with its usual false kindness, the silent collective cry of the GMs and scouts against a reservoir of exhausting talent is growing more and more. Luck is by far the biggest domino to fall. If he can withdraw from the game (and millions of future winnings in a league in which good QB play for a long time) just before the start of the season, everyone can do it. This means that, in the future, teams will be too scared to be able to name SOME ONE.

Try to think of another sport that has to deal with players who do not want to play it. This only happens in the NFL, and all the rule adjustments and penalty mark barrages they have concocted have not yet done so and will not reduce this exodus. That's why scouts ask players all sorts of shit disturbed at the combine, like If you were a jellybean, what flavor of jellybean would you be? or If you could kill a man and get away with it, would not you? The 40 jumps and vertical jumps hold the usual attention. But what scouts really want to learn about potential candidates when they go to the combine in Indianapolis – how to fit a place right now Are you too smart and rational to keep playing this game?

No one but the NFL is stupid enough to retain technical means to maintain an unsustainable match. The retirement of Andrew Luck will only increase Football Men's first urgency to find true football believers to play football: those who never question their confidence. Richie Incognito is a seriously ill man who should NOT play football at the moment. Yet the Oakland Raiders are blithely taking it off the free market this season. Why? Because they know that Richie has already tried to get away from the sport – citing failing bodies, nothing less – and still could not bring himself to do it. That's what EVERY team wants, against all intuition. They want you to be all of us, and they do not really think so in the way of Chuck Pagano. They want people who are willing to sacrifice everything to play the game or who are too subconscious to know what they are doing. They do NOT want people who understand who and what they are giving their body to. And they have cultivated a culture of fans and media that despises almost any player who does not meet these foolish criteria:

They want you to get enlisted. They want you to serve your team for God and the country. That's the plan. The NFL has always been in love with its war metaphors. It is therefore normal that the league is now lost in an existential way by trying to deal with the consequences of REAL human wrecks – when players discover that this sport will kill them, and the faster they will kill them. The NFL does not want players like that. They want something beyond mere passion. They want players too obsessed to see the danger or to feel the pain. They want you to forgive the expression, the damaged brain. Andrew Luck knew better than to give his whole life to this league. He will not be the last. In some critical respects he is simply the first.