The annual affair that is the Cincinnati Bengals playing the Indianapolis Colts in the fourth week of the preseason simply for convenience just got quite a bit more interesting with Andrew Luck deciding to hang up the cleats.
Word of Luck’s decision to retire at the age of 29 leaked Saturday night while his team was partaking in a preseason game. He was booed off the field in Indianapolis, though his laundry list of notable injuries explains why he was willing to walk away early and speaks to just how important the offensive line is (something the Colts never got right for him until 2018).
Normally, starters weren’t going to play in Thursday’s upcoming game, anyway. But with the Colts now turning to Jacoby Brissett as their starter under center, a game both teams normally attempt to speed through to avoid injuries has a sense of desperation for the Colts.
From a Bengals perspective, that should be good news for a defense still trying to figure things out. The situation in the trenches isn’t an easy one to dissect from a cut-down perspective and linebacker remains a mess, so a bit of a tougher-than-expected environment in the fourth preseason game doesn’t hurt.
Luck leaves football with 23,000-plus passing yards and 171 touchdowns over just 86 games and six seasons of play. He was a truly generational talent in every sense of the overused word.
