Colts Should Act Now to Make Andrew Luck NFL’s Highest-Paid Player, Despite 2015

Andrew Luck ranked 92nd among active players on the NFL Network program The Top 100 Players of 2016 that started airing last week. 

According to Bleacher Report’s Jason Cole, the Colts are about to make Luck the highest-paid player in the NFL.

The 92nd best player in the NFL, according to a poll of his peers, is about to be made the highest-paid player? I smell a controversy. A silly, ridiculous controversy…but that’s the best kind you can hope for this time of year.

For the Colts, signing Luck to a long-term contract that makes him the NFL’s highest-paid player isn’t just inevitable—it’s the best move they can make. It’s the only easy decision they have had in an offseason full of tricky decisions, some of which they may have already botched.

The Real Andrew Luck

Let’s get Luck’s 92nd ranking in a prefabricated television-content generator off the table right away. The NFL Network sends ballots to NFL players in November, asking them to rank the NFL’s top 20 players so they can combine the lists into a television countdown. Players scribble down the names of obvious superstars, current teammates, former teammates, college teammates and maybe someone who gave them a handful in last week’s big game. To judge from this Pro Football Talk report in 2013, about a fourth of players actually turn in their scribbles to be tabulated. It’s like Pro Bowl balloting without the obligation to select a guard.

Where was Luck when the halfhearted balloting began? Dealing with a lacerated kidney. Out of sight, out of mind.

Fair enough. The NFL Network rankings exist so the NFL Network can argue about the rankings on NFL Network. But Pro Football Focus ranked Luck 35th among quarterbacks last year, behind Matt Cassel, Blaine Gabbert and (gulp) Johnny Manziel. Football Outsiders ranked Luck 33rd in its DYAR stat, again with Gabbert and Manziel ahead of him. Colts backup Matt Hasselbeck topped him according to both sets of metrics.

Luck threw multiple-interception games against the Jets, Bills, Panthers, Titans and Saints in just seven total starts last season. Did you watch the Saints defense last year? You practically had to walk up to a defender, wipe the football with a warm towel and hand it to him for the Saints to record a takeaway. Luck’s interception rate of 4.1 percent would have led the league if Peyton Manning hadn’t turned into the grandpa from a fiber supplement commercial last year.

There were extenuating circumstances. Luck battled shoulder and rib injuries all year before the lacerated kidney took him out of the lineup. The Colts pass protection was awful, and game plans (particularly before offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton gave way to Rob Chudzinski) were inscrutable. The Colts’ blitz-pickup plan appeared to be to put their thumbs in their ears and pretend the blitz wasn’t happening. Luck played through a pummeling until his internal organs were literally torn up. Then Hasselbeck was treated like Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant.

Six of Luck’s 12 interceptions occurred when the Colts trailed by 10 or more points. At least three were the result of Luck getting hit as he threw. One was tipped in the …

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