Few QBs As Good As Andrew Luck Have Left The Game So Early

Aug 25, 2019

Even in a sport where early retirements are all the rage in recent seasons, this one shocked the NFL world. On Saturday night, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck had informed the team he was retiring due to being “mentally worn down”:

Filed to ESPN: Andrew Luck has informed the Colts he is retiring from the NFL, per source. There will be a press conference Sunday to make it official, but Luck is mentally worn down, and now checking out.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) August 25, 2019

(And here we were thinking Antonio Brown was the NFL’s most likely superstar to abruptly retire this preseason…)

Luck, who won’t turn 30 until September, had already compiled one of the greatest-ever starts to a quarterback career. The No. 1 overall pick from the 2012 draft picked up the reins from the recently departed Peyton Manning in Indianapolis and immediately led the Colts to the playoffs in his first three seasons, reaching the AFC Championship in 2014. But injuries soon disrupted his storybook narrative. He missed more than half of the 2015 season due to a string of injuries and all of 2017 after undergoing shoulder surgery. Prior to Saturday’s announcement, he had sat out all of preseason due to a lingering leg injury.

When he was on the field, though, the numbers spoke for themselves. Through his age-29 season,¹ Luck already had the 84th-most yards, 68th-most touchdowns and 95th-most Approximate Value (AV, Pro-Football-Reference’s rough way of synthesizing a player’s cumulative value into a single number) of any passer in NFL history. Just looking at seasons before age 30, Luck had about the same AV as John Elway, Joe Montana and Tom Brady:

Luck’s career was off to an all-time great start

Best quarterbacks through their age-29 season according to Approximate Value, 1960-2018

Rank	Quarterback	Seasons	Games	Starts	Total AV	Per 16 Starts
1	Peyton Manning	1998-05	128	128	133	16.6
2	Cam Newton	2011-18	123	122	122	16.0
3	Fran Tarkenton	1961-69	126	119	121	16.3
4	Dan Marino	1983-90	119	117	114	15.6
5	Brett Favre	1991-98	113	109	109	16.0
6	Matt Ryan	2008-14	110	110	101	14.7
7	Matthew Stafford	2009-17	125	125	100	12.8
8	Russell Wilson	2012-17	96	96	100	16.7
9	Drew Brees	2001-08	107	106	95	14.3
10	Ben Roethlisberger	2004-11	114	113	95	13.5
11	Drew Bledsoe	1993-01	124	123	91	11.8
12	Daunte Culpepper	1999-06	85	84	91	17.3
13	Ken Anderson	1971-78	104	96	89	14.8
14	Boomer Esiason	1984-90	101	93	89	15.3
15	Joe Namath	1965-72	91	85	89	16.8
16	Steve Grogan	1975-82	99	92	88	15.3
17	Steve McNair	1995-02	103	95	88	14.8
18	Aaron Rodgers	2005-12	85	78	88	18.1
19	Randall Cunningham	1985-92	97	85	86	16.2
20	Philip Rivers	2004-10	84	80	84	16.8
21	Joe Flacco	2008-14	112	112	83	11.9
22	Neil Lomax	1981-88	108	101	82	13.0
23	Jim Zorn	1976-82	94	92	81	14.1
24	Troy Aikman	1989-95	98	98	80	13.1
25	Tom Brady	2000-06	96	94	80	13.6
26	Bob Griese	1967-74	94	90	80	14.2
27	Donovan McNabb	1999-05	94	88	80	14.5
28	Joe Montana	1979-85	103	79	80	16.2
29	John Elway	1983-89	100	98	79	12.9
30	Bert Jones	1973-80	83	77	79	16.4
31	Andrew Luck	2012-18	86	86	79	14.7
32	John Hadl	1962-69	112	82	78	15.2
33	Dan Fouts	1973-80	96	89	74	13.3
34	Terry Bradshaw	1970-77	97	87	73	13.4
35	Andy Dalton	2011-16	93	93	73	12.6

And that number might be understating Luck’s value. Because he missed so many games due to injury, he averaged 14.7 AV per 16 starts through age 29, the 19th-most of anyone on the list above, and more than contemporaries like Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger and Brady.

Luck shined in other metrics as well. As ProFootballFocus noted after the news of Luck’s retirement, he was a fixture atop their player grades, which try to measure player performance independent of teammate contributions. (Last season, he ranked third in the NFL behind Drew Brees and Patrick Mahomes.) According to ESPN’s Total Quarterback Rating, Luck ranked fifth last season; for their part, Football Outsiders ranked him seventh in total value.

We’ve seen stars at other positions, like wide receiver Calvin Johnson (who retired after his age-30 season) and tight end Rob Gronkowski (age 29) walk away from the NFL in their primes. But it is exceedingly rare for a quarterback of Luck’s caliber to leave the game before age 30. If we limit our ranking above to quarterbacks who never played another game after their age-29 season, Luck has the second-most career AV, coming in ahead of former 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick — whose exile from the NFL was not by choice — and trailing only ex-Cardinals starter Neil Lomax:

It’s hard to find historical comparisons for Luck’s retirement

Best quarterbacks through their age-29 season (according to Approximate Value) who never played again after age 29, 1960-2018

Rank	Quarterback	Seasons	Games	Starts	Total AV	Per 16 Starts
1	Neil Lomax	1981-88	108	101	82	13.0
2	Andrew Luck	2012-18	86	86	79	14.7
3	Colin Kaepernick	2011-16	69	58	49	13.5
4	Josh Freeman	2009-15	62	61	41	10.8
5	David Woodley	1980-85	58	53	37	11.2
6	Pat Haden	1976-81	65	55	36	10.5
7	Vince Young	2006-11	60	50	36	11.5
8	Joey Harrington	2002-07	81	76	33	6.9
9	Tim Couch	1999-03	62	59	32	8.7
10	Steve Fuller	1979-86	90	42	32	12.2

Unlike Kaepernick, who probably still could play if given the chance (hello, Colts?), Lomax was forced to retire young due to an arthritic hip. He’s not a player many remember nowadays, but he was a Pro Bowler twice and led the 1987 NFL in passing yards. Beyond him, Luck and Kaepernick, it’s hard to find any other comparable examples of good QBs who never played a down in their 30s. That’s a big part of what makes Luck’s abrupt decision to walk away from the game on the eve of the 2019 season so surprising.

Now the Colts will have to move on without one of the best quarterbacks in the league. With Luck — and his +208 QB rating (relative to a replacement-level undrafted rookie) in our new quarterback-adjusted Elo rating system — we had the Colts rated as the ninth-best team in the NFL, with a 1564 rating (which roughly equates to 9.2 wins per 16 games against a typical schedule). Now they’ll be left with Jacoby Brissett, whose Elo value over replacement is +108.² That drop-off leaves the Colts rated with a 1479 Elo, which ranks only 21st in the league and carries an expectation of 7.5 wins against an average schedule.

But Luck ultimately made his decision, which he called the hardest of his life, because he had lost his love for the game. “I haven’t been able to live the life I want to live,” he said Saturday night. “It’s taken the joy out of this game … the only way forward for me is to remove myself from football.” The result is a huge loss — for the Colts, but also for a league which will be missing one of the most promising young quarterbacks to ever play the game.

Tags: Andrew Luck Indianapolis Colts NFL