Andrew Luck: 'It'll be all right'

Zak Keefer | IndyStar

Show Caption Hide Caption Andrew Luck says he's getting better every day, every week Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck speaks about his shoulder progress, rehab after practice at the Colts Complex on Tuesday, June 13, 2017. "I'm feeling well. I'm feeling good."

INDIANAPOLIS – Never in his life has he gone this long without throwing a football.

Typically, at the absolute most, a month will creep by after a long season ends, and after he’s found a beach and caught up on his sleep and devoured one or two or ten books, he’ll get the itch, and he’ll start firing away. He’ll get to work. That’s what quarterbacks do. They throw.

Not this year. Andrew Luck is going on five months now. No throws; no exceptions. It’s wearing on him.

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“There’s certainly an urge to pick something up and throw it,” he conceded Tuesday. “But that’s not part of the protocol.”

The protocol – a.k.a. The Process – does not allow for the Indianapolis Colts’ franchise QB to participate in this week’s mandatory minicamp. He remains in rehab, slogging away while his teammates run the offense and get ready for the coming season. Yet the real question, after it was revealed Luck underwent surgery on his throwing shoulder in mid-January, was never about minicamp in June.

It was about training camp in July.

Will he be ready?

“Am I hopeful? Am I praying?” his coach, Chuck Pagano, said. “Yeah. So is everybody. But there really is no timetable on it.”

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There is no timetable on it. That’s been echoed once, twice, a hundred times from West 56th Street since Luck began his rehabilitation in mid-March. It’s starting to feel like a company-wide slogan around here.

“I think timelines are unfair to everyone involved in the process,” Luck said.

To hear him tell it, as he did Tuesday for the first time in several weeks, the star quarterback doesn’t seem overly concerned. Luck has admitted more than once this spring and summer that he’s actually enjoying the rehab process, the incremental yet tangible steps he’s making toward becoming 100 percent healthy again – something he hasn’t been since Week 2 of the 2015 season.

Consider that for a minute: This is an injury that lingered for 16 months.

Still, when asked if he’ll be ready for the start of training camp, which arrives in a little over six weeks, Luck was noncommittal.



“To be honest, I have not thought about it,” he said. “If I’m ready for it, then great. If I’m not, then that’s the way it is. I’m certainly hopeful for it. In my mind all I can do – and I truly feel this way – with this rehab, with my shoulder, I can’t look five months down the road, three months down the road, a week down the road. To me it’s about the next rehab session, the next day. That’s where my focus is and that’s where I think it needs to be to truly get back to 100 percent.”

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In other words: Don’t be stunned if he’s not out there when the Colts reconvene in late July. And whenever he does hit the field, Pagano said, he’ll be on a “pitch count” and is expected to be very limited in the number of throws he makes per day.

The Colts open the season Sept. 10 in Los Angeles against the Rams – a little less than three months from now – and owner Jim Irsay has said he expects Luck to be on the field that day.

Luck, noticeably thinner in recent weeks, did confirm Tuesday that he dropped around 15 pounds post-surgery. He says he’s put “10-12” of those back on, and he’d still like to gain between three and five more pounds to return to his playing weight of roughly 240.

Luck also revealed that he is “absolutely approaching” the throwing portion of his rehab, a good indicator that he’s showing signs of progress. Asked for his level of confidence that, in the end, he’ll return to form, Luck didn’t hesitate with his response.

“Very high, very, very high,” he said. “I feel and see myself getting better, every day, every week, and that’s sort of something you can hang your hat on.

“If I didn’t enjoy coming into this building to work and to rehab and to do the sort of double-days and everything, then it would be miserable,” he added. “But it’s not. I enjoy the people I work with. I enjoy the work. I enjoy getting better.”

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Luck did Tuesday what he’s done throughout the spring while the Colts are on the field practicing: He watched, he instructed, he coached. He has spent a good chunk of practice time in recent weeks with the wide receiving unit, working the younger wideouts through routes and formations and the like.

He has also spent more time working with virtual reality – a device he’s toyed with in years past on the Stanford campus. He’s been in the meetings, he’s watched the film. What he hasn’t done is throw the football.

He was upbeat on Tuesday, brimming with optimism. Maybe it’s because he knows he’s making progress. Maybe it’s because he knows he’s getting close.

The final question posed to Luck on Tuesday: What message would he relay to Colts fans out there who remain concerned he won’t be ready for the 2017 season?

“They don’t need to have any concerns about their quarterback,” he said. “It’ll be all right.”

Call IndyStar reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134. Follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.