by Cian Fahey

Andrew Luck was awful in 2015. Truly awful. "One of the worst starters in the league" awful. Ryan Lindley aw—well, maybe not that bad. Luck spent the 2015 season making bad decisions, missing open receivers and generally reacting poorly to pressure. He led the league in Interceptable Pass Rate (courtesy of the Pre-Snap Reads Quarterback Catalogue) while throwing 12 interceptions in just seven games. That's a dozen picks on 293 pass attempts during the regular season; meanwhile, 10 other quarterbacks attempted at least 400 passes and didn't throw as many interceptions as Luck did. He averaged a career-low 6.4 yards per attempt, while completing just 55.3 percent of his passes. Luck at least threw for 15 touchdowns, but everything about his season was a departure from his career to that point.

The Colts aren't concerned. In fact, Jim Irsay is talking about giving the 26-year old a huge contract extension this offseason. "It's going to be a shocking number, nine figures and probably a $20 million starting point per year," the Colts owner said. It's fashionable to give your starting quarterback a monstrous contract extension these days, but that doesn't mean it's always a smart move. With Luck under contract for one more year and the franchise tag option from that point onwards, the Colts don't have to be in a rush to tie Luck down. The benefits of giving him the contract should be obvious; they will have secured the future of their franchise quarterback and settled any concerns he may have moving forward. Luck would be able to fully focus on improving as a quarterback, putting the Colts as a whole in the best position to succeed.

Regardless of how the market is forcing teams to be aggressive in re-signing their starters, the Colts shouldn't have any qualms about giving Luck a huge deal.

He may have been truly awful in 2015, but Luck was also hurt. Long before he appeared on the official injury report for the first time in October, Luck was showing signs of physical restraint. The first overall pick from the 2012 draft wasn't moving as comfortably as he had in previous seasons; he wasn't showing off the same control in his throwing motion and was more wary of taking hits from arriving defenders. Through the first three years of his career, those were three areas where Luck excelled. He has always mitigated pressure in the pocket with his movement, comfortably delivering the ball with hands in his face while shifting his weight to work through traffic. His arm talent to push the ball into tight windows downfield was always highlighted by a snappy, instantaneous release that created sustained velocity to all levels of the field.

While those traits were constant, Luck's development as a passer came more gradually. The Colts have never asked Luck to play in a short-passing, shotgun-heavy system that emphasizes efficiency. As such, he has always been put in situations where he had to work under pressure while throwing into tight windows downfield. Those situations typically lead to more incompletions and interception opportunities for opposing defenses. Despite executing that scheme with limited talent over the first two years of his career, Luck exceeded his extremely lofty expectations.

It was his third season, 2014, when Luck truly stepped into the upper echelon of NFL stars. The talent didn't get much better in 2014; Luck's receivers failed at the catch point 77 times for at least 893 lost yards and seven touchdowns (for comparison's sake, no quarterback had more than 64 failed receptions and 836 lost yards in 2015), while his offensive line remained a set of saloon doors.

Andrew Luck's 2015 Accuracy Chart Pass Distance Less than 2 2-10 11-20 21+ Outside Numbers Left 100.0% 7 82.4% 17 64.3% 14 55.6% 9 Outside Hashes Left 90.1% 11 71.0% 31 80.0% 10 85.7% 7 Between Hashes 100.0% 3 94.4% 18 77.8% 9 0.0% 2 Outside Hashes Right 100.0% 14 77.4% 31 55.6% 9 66.7% 6 Outside Numbers Right 100.0% 8 77.8% 18 55.6% 9 47.0% 17

This pass chart comes from last season, when Luck was accurate on 76.2 percent of his passes. The number next to each percentage is how many throws were targeted into those specific areas of the field. Luck thrived on throws where the ball didn't travel further than 2 yards downfield, but his placement became an adventure from there. Luck's main problem was that he couldn't create velocity on the ball while gripping it with the same authority that he had in 2014. His intermediate and deep accuracy was extremely problematic, which is a major problem in the Colts' scheme. If you go back 12 months to when Luck was definitely healthy, his accuracy was phenomenal not only in terms of his consistency but also in terms of completing difficult throws into tight coverage downfield.

Andrew Luck's 2014 Accuracy Chart Pass Distance Less than 2 2-10 11-20 21+ Outside Numbers Left 90.1% 22 73.2% 41 64.9% 37 41.2% 17 Outside Hashes Left 92.6% 54 83.9% 56 83.3% 24 42.9% 7 Between Hashes 92.3% 13 75.7% 37 83.3% 24 62.5% 8 Outside Hashes Right 92.5% 53 83.3% 78 74.1% 27 48.3% 15 Outside Numbers Right 97.4% 38 80.4% 46 71.8% 39 75.0% 40

Luck's accuracy rate in 2015 was 79.8 percent, which would have ranked sixth amongst the quarterbacks charted in the Pre-Snap Reads Quarterback Catalogue for the 2015 season. None of the players with a higher total percentage played in an offense that was as aggressive or demanding as Luck's. Luck's accuracy to the 2-10 level of the field was within one percent of 80 in each of 2014 and 2015. Where the discrepancy began to develop was further downfield. In 2014, Luck had an accuracy percentage of 74.2 percent to the 11-20 level of the field. In 2015, that number fell to just 66.7 percent. Between 21 and 49 yards downfield, Luck's 2014 accuracy was 60.7 percent, whereas his 2015 accuracy percentage was 56.1. And while Luck only hit one of three passes of 50-plus yards in 2014, he didn't even muster up a single attempt at that depth in 2015.

Consistent accuracy when throwing shorter passes to wide-open receivers from completely clean pockets shouldn't buy you anything. You don't need to be great to thrive under those circumstances. In 2014, Luck thrived in the opposite. Luck sustained quality play and continued to develop season after season while constantly playing under pressure and throwing the ball into tight windows. He showed off everything you need to see from a quarterback to buy in over the long term.

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This is the type of play that Luck has been required to make throughout his career. He drops back in the pocket and holds the ball until his receiver has a chance to get into position downfield. Luck has to find a sweet spot between holding the ball long enough for the route combinations to develop downfield and releasing the ball before the defender can contact him. Luck knows that he is going to be hit and the defender is going to hit him before he can cleanly get rid of the ball, therefore he has to throw with anticipation and rely on his quick release to get the ball out at the perfect time. Luck's pass leads his tight end away from the dropping defender in coverage and allows him to comfortably catch the ball before going out of bounds.

Making this throw requires sustained velocity and the control to push the ball past the defender in coverage. You can't make this play if the ball floats slightly, or if you are straining to get it to the right spot on time. This is the play that Luck struggled to make in 2015, but made constantly with ease in 2014.

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When throwing outside the numbers down the right sideline (21 or more yards from the line of scrimmage), Luck hit 75.0 percent of his passes. That is an outrageous number. He hit the bull's eye on his first 17 attempts to that area of the field, missing his first on the season with a desperation heave against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Colts' eighth game of the 2014 season. As the above GIFs show, these throws were regularly of an extremely high degree of difficulty. Luck wasn't relying on hard play fakes to distort the defense's coverage so he could throw from a clean pocket to a receiver left wide open outside. Because of the deep drops on which the Colts offense relies, Luck's shorter throws often required just as much of his arm talent to get the ball to the right spot on time.

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The control that Luck shows off over the velocity and trajectory of his passes allows him to be a precision thrower. He's not just another big-bodied, strong-armed passer who sprays the ball in the direction of his intended receivers. On this play against the Cincinnati Bengals, Luck has no margin for error once again. If he slightly underthrows the ball, the defensive back undercutting would have an opportunity to intercept the pass. If Luck even slightly overthrows the ball, it is viable to drift over the sideline because of the trajectory from which it is arriving. Luck understands that he needs to target his intended target's upfield shoulder, and he has the arm talent to put it perfectly in that spot at the exact time it needs to be there.

Luck settles at the top of his drop 8 yards from the line of scrimmage. He is on the left hashmark throwing the ball to the right sideline, so even though the ball only arrives 14 yards past the line of scrimmage, the throw itself likely traveled 25 or 30 yards in the air.

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On this play, T.Y. Hilton runs a 15-yard comeback route on the right side of the field. He is well covered by the Denver Broncos cornerback, so the timing of Luck's throw from the opposite hash is imperative to the success of the play. Luck's arm talent will allow him to make this throw, but there is no way he can hit Hilton without releasing the ball extremely early. Luck has to visualize the placement of the ball as Hilton enters his break so the ball is there to be caught at a point when the defender is out of the play. This is a play that is built into the Colts offense; it's a very difficult play, but not one that Luck created outside of design or one the Colts turn to reluctantly. It's the kind of throw a West Coast offense will avoid because of the inherent risks of having the ball travel so far across the face of the defender.

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The system in Indianapolis requires the quarterback to be aggressive, but Luck's mentality is to be aggressive regardless. This play against the New England Patriots is one of the most impressive you will see from any quarterback. Luck climbs in the pocket and turns his body while reading the defense so he can come back to Reggie Wayne on the backside of the play. Luck is a moment late letting the ball go, but his arm strength and ability to deliver the ball from a rotating platform allows the ball to catch up to Wayne with ease. This is the type of throw that creates big plays both ways for most quarterbacks. The degree of difficulty means that the quarterback can't afford to miss, not even slightly, or he risks an interception rather than just an incompletion.

Interceptions have been a common criticism of Luck over the course of his career. Yet, when you understand the context surrounding his career, it's hard to be anything but impressed with his ball security.

When Eli Manning last ran a similar offense to the one Luck has been in throughout his career, back in 2013, he threw 27 interceptions on 551 attempts. Since that season, Manning has thrown 28 interceptions on 1,219 attempts. For his career, including the disastrous 2015 season, Luck has thrown 55 interceptions on 2,106 regular season attempts. That gives him a 2.61 percent interception rate, 14th of 20 quarterbacks since 2012 who have started at least 48 games. If you take out the 2015 season, Luck's interception rate falls to 2.37 percent and his ranking jumps to 10th amongst the 22 quarterbacks who then qualify.

Most of Luck's peers were established veterans playing in more quarterback-friendly schemes, so his ranking would likely be higher if we could statistically account for those elements.

Luck's interceptable passes were just as favorable in 2014. He threw an interceptable pass once every 26.3 attempts ranking 12th in the whole league. His collapse in 2015 in this measurement was actually mirrored, bested even, by Carson Palmer. Palmer's situation isn't completely the same as Luck's because of the talent around him, but both quarterbacks play in similarly aggressive offenses. For 15 weeks, Palmer had an Interceptable Pass Rate of one interceptable pass per 28.5 attempts, an extremely impressive number. In Week 15 he injured his throwing hand and had an atrocious Interceptable Pass Rate from that point onwards, on every 9.5 attempts. Palmer's physical ailment prevented him from being able to make the requisite throws to make the Cardinals offense function.

Sports exist in a No Excuse culture. Football is especially bad in this sense. As kids we are taught to push ourselves towards our limits, sometimes even past our limits, in the hopes of becoming better beings. You don't create reasons to quit or reasons to believe you are lesser than anyone else around you. You fight through what is put in front of you and put yourself in position to overcome it. That is the culture of sports. It's a necessary, even if sometimes dangerous one to push athletes towards their physical, emotional, mental, and technical peaks. One of the trade-offs of experiencing sports through that mindset is you tend to conflate context and explanations with excuses.

Explaining Luck's 2015 season isn't to excuse it; it's to understand how it fits in the decision-making process moving forward. The quarterback position is the one spot in Indianapolis where the Colts should have no concerns.