Though he’s enjoying the retired life and no longer leading the Indianapolis Colts offense, former quarterback Andrew Luck was named the team’s best draft pick of the last decade from Bleacher Report.
Other Colts like center Ryan Kelly, left guard Quenton Nelson and linebacker Darius Leonard were mentioned as candidates, Kristopher Knox went with the former No. 1 overall pick.
While Andrew Luck’s career didn’t end as anyone could have predicted—injuries led him to retire after just seven years and six seasons—he remains the Indianapolis Colts’ best pick of the last decade.
There was some debate heading into the 2012 draft about whether Luck or Robert Griffin III was the player to pick at the top. Indianapolis banked on Luck, and the Stanford product immediately became a star.
Luck made the Pro Bowl in his first season and helped lead Indianapolis to the playoffs. He took the Colts to the postseason in each of his first three campaigns, making it to the AFC title game in 2014. In all, Luck had four Pro Bowl appearances, made the playoffs four times and finished with 23,671 passing yards, 171 passing touchdowns, 1,590 rushing yards and 14 rushing touchdowns.
Had Luck not retired early, he would likely be a future Hall of Famer. Still, for more than half a decade, he was one of the league’s few elite signal-callers. While recent draft picks Ryan Kelly, Quenton Nelson and Darius Leonard could vie for such a title in the near future, Luck is the gold standard.
Luck’s tenure with the Colts was filled with injuries and a regime that failed to build around one of the best quarterback prospects to come out in years at the time.
There will always be some regret and wonder when it comes to the Colts and the retirement is still very fresh in the mind of fans, especially with how quickly everything that developed that night.
Now, the Colts are moving forward with Carson Wentz under center after Chris Ballard sent two draft picks to Philadelphia in order to reunite him with head coach Frank Reich.
