Zak Keefer | IndyStar

Robert Scheer/IndyStar

Mykal McEldowney/IndyStar

INDIANAPOLIS – Chris Ballard didn’t put his two boys to bed until after midnight Wednesday — he wasn’t gonna be the dad that kept them from watching history. Back when he was a kid, his grandfather would let him tag along to games at the old Houston Astrodome, and that’s how a lifelong Football Guy grew a soft spot for the diamond. Fifty-five years of futility for his favorite team ended this week. The Houston Astros won the World Series.

After the TV was off and his boys were asleep, the Colts general manager sat and weighed the Astros’ long climb. Nine playoff-less seasons in the past decade, including 100-loss campaigns in 2011, 2012 and 2013. Four years later, they’re world champs.

He thought about the unscripted allure of sports. He thought about his football team making the same climb.

“What it would mean to our city, and to our fans, to bring a contender and a championship here,” Ballard said 12 hours later at the Indianapolis Colts’ West 56th Street facility, “and that’s something we’re gonna do. We’re gonna do that.”

But Ballard wasn’t there to talk baseball. He was there to put to bed Andrew Luck’s 2017 season, to defend the franchise’s handling of its star quarterback’s never-ending rehabilitation and recovery, to temper the simmering fear around this city that the 28-year-old will never be the same — or worse, will never play again.

{{props.notification}} {{props.tag}} {{props.expression}} {{props.linkSubscribe.text}} {{#modules.acquisition.inline}}{{/modules.acquisition.inline}} ... Our reporting. Your stories. Get unlimited digital access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now

Referring to rumors that Luck is facing a career-threatening injury, Ballard revealed "I've not got that from one doctor." Then he dished a perspective that’s very likely been lacking in this building during previous seasons. “Career-ending is putting him on the field before he’s ready to play,” Ballard noted.

Robert Scheer/IndyStar

Now that won’t be a concern. Now there’s no ticking clock, no December decision looming about whether the Colts should trot out the franchise’s most valuable appendage — Luck’s surgically repaired throwing arm — in the snow in Buffalo or Baltimore for a game that means absolute zilch. Now he has 10 months to get himself right before he becomes a starting quarterback again.

This season, disastrous as it’s been, painful as it can be to watch, could — and should — pay off for this franchise down the line. Everything hinges on Luck’s shoulder, which won’t throw a football for some time while he continues to rehab and strengthen. No additional surgery is planned. The Colts remain “optimistic” — a word used by both Ballard and Luck on Thursday — that the QB simply needs more time. Now he has it.

“I think he’s got great resolve,” Ballard said of his QB. “Look: through the dark times, there’s got to be light. I think a year of his body healing, getting his shoulder right, I think we’re going to see an even better Andrew Luck down the line.”

“I’ll know I’ll be a better quarterback,” Luck said in a brief statement released by the team.

Ballard, furthermore, quickly dismissed the notion that this was the plan all along — that it was never in the cards for Luck to suit up in 2017. The facts defend this. Luck was slinging 40-yarders with ease in practice last month, checking off the boxes necessary for a return. He went as far as to face the Colts’ first-team defense in practice one day. Asked if he saw the finish line in sight, Luck was succinct. “I think I do,” he beamed.

But the soreness that has developed in recent weeks was something Luck couldn’t shake, and with time running out, the Colts made the wise and prudent decision to end his 2017 season before it ever really started. It was never the outcome they anticipated.

“I don’t think it crossed anybody’s mind,” Ballard told the team website Thursday. “I don’t think it crossed Andrew’s mind.”

No matter. It’s this team’s reality. And it’s Ballard’s job to keep the Colts competitive while the star quarterback slogs through what could be a 19-month span between starts.

The silver lining, of sorts, will assuredly come in the form of the team’s first top-10 draft pick since the Colts serendipitously landed Luck in 2012. As of today, the Colts are slated to pick fourth overall, their highest selection (throwing out 2012) since all the way back in 1999, when the team grabbed a running back out of Miami named Edgerrin James.

That’s right: Only once in the past 22 years have the Colts had a top-five pick they weren’t spending on a franchise-altering quarterback. They’re about to welcome a rare opportunity.

For a roster littered with holes and grossly lacking in depth, that pick will offer Ballard and his staff a delicious opportunity to snag the sort of difference-maker (Edge rusher? Inside linebacker? Receiver? Running back?) this team has far too little of. Bill Polian, remember, built the nucleus of the Colts’ most gilded era by hitting on his first-round picks, from Manning to James to Reggie Wayne to Dwight Freeney to Dallas Clark. Now Ballard has to try to do the same, or come close.

Another advantage this season offers Ballard and his staff is an unvarnished assessment of this flawed roster, an evaluation that won’t be influenced by Luck’s on-field brilliance. Luck spent his first three years in the league, injury-free, carrying a team with an awful offensive line and no running game to the playoffs.

Luck covered up the holes. The team won 33 games.

Now the holes are there for all to see. The Colts are 2-6.

“Nobody cares about your problems, nobody cares,” Ballard said Thursday, referring to the Colts’ misfortune. “All they care about is the result on Sunday. That’s why I’ve made a big emphasis here (of) it’s about the team. It’s about us finding a way to win. No matter who’s active and who’s playing and who’s not injured and who’s here. Finding a way to win on game day, finding a way to win on Sundays. It’s never about one player.”

Forget Luck: The Colts need to find a way to build a football team around him. Ballard’s been clear about this from Day 1. And he’s started. The young crop of talent he plucked in last spring’s draft — led by Malik Hooker and Marlon Mack — bodes well for the future. Stack more young talent on top of that in the coming years, and assuming Luck does return to the fold in 2018, healthy once more, the Colts' fortunes could turn, and could turn quickly.

Past provides precedent, and Luck is hardly the first star quarterback to face an injury that threatens his career. Manning’s neck cost him the entire 2011 season; his QB rating his first year back, in Denver, was 14 points higher than his final season in Indianapolis. He threw an NFL record 55 touchdowns a year later.

Matthew Stafford played just 13 games his first two years in the league, battling a pair of shoulder separations. He hasn’t missed a start since and has thrown for 29,352 yards.

Drew Brees’ labrum surgery in 2006 turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to his NFL career. He landed in New Orleans and has missed one start in 12 years, authoring a Hall of Fame-worthy career along the way.

They’ve answered the questions, silenced the doubts. In 2018, Luck will have to do the same.

As the Colts have continued to point out, and as the past 10 months have proven, no two injuries are the same, no two recoveries identical. Luck’s shoulder isn’t Stafford’s shoulder. Isn’t Brees’ shoulder, either.

Jim Irsay’s bold proclamation back in January that his quarterback would be ready for the season now just looks like fool’s gold. This long, slow slog hasn’t been something the team, or its quarterback, ever expected.

Andrew recovering from successful outpatient surgery to fix right shoulder injury that had lingered since 2015. Will be ready for season! — Jim Irsay (@JimIrsay) January 19, 2017

“The shoulder is subjective,” Ballard explained. “After a surgery, everybody is different. Everybody rehabs in a different way.”

The rehab will continue, the questions, the uncertainties, the pessimism. The Colts won’t be whole again until The Franchise is back under center, and the earliest that can happen is next September.

Remember: This fall doesn’t have to be a total waste. The payoff might just take a good long while to arrive.

Even amidst the darkness, Chris Ballard sees the light. His favorite baseball team provides the proof.

More Colts: