Insider: We're seeing Andrew Luck 2.0, and he's smarter than ever

Zak Keefer | IndyStar

Show Caption Hide Caption Doyel, Keefer give thoughts on Colts dominate win Insider Zak Keefer and columnist Gregg Doyel discuss the Indianapolis Colts win over the Buffalo Bills.

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INDIANAPOLIS — A year ago this week his arm was aching, the cortisone shot was coming and his season was kaput. His career? No one knew. Most of all Andrew Luck.

He boarded a plane for Europe scared deep in his core he might never be the same, that the game of football could be taken from him years before he was ready to let it go.

It was the price he was paying for years of on-field abuse, and for months, it sent him into a darkness that haunts him to this day. His body had been battered since the moment he stepped on an NFL field, turned into a weekly punching bag, damaged by hits that were the result of a perpetually awful offensive line and Luck’s own recklessness. He played the game one way. He always had.

“He’s so darn competitive, he doesn’t want to go down, and he doesn’t want to slide, and he doesn’t want to throw the ball away,” his first position coach in the NFL, Clyde Christensen, said years back. “In Year 14, he’s still going to have to manage this issue. This ain’t going away.”

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For years, it didn’t. While the majority of shots Luck took were inside the pocket, and not his fault, plenty came outside – after interceptions, on scrambles, you name it. The coach talked about it. The GM talked about it. The owner talked about it. Luck was a rookie in 2012 when he told his interim coach, Bruce Arians, “If I throw the interception, I make the tackle.”

“The hell you do,” Arians shot back.

But it was hard truth for him to learn, even harder to fight those instincts in the heat of battle, the first down yards away and the linebacker breathing down his neck. “It’s one thing to say it,” Luck always admitted, “it’s another to actually do it.”

And here was progress, Sunday’s game against the Buffalo Bills, a year removed from one of Luck’s lowest moments of 2017. He’s climbed out of football purgatory and slid into the second phase of his career with a perspective he never had but always needed. Luck dazzled in Sunday’s 37-5 win, throwing for 156 yards on 23 attempts. He was so surgical he nearly had as many touchdowns (four) as incompletions (six). He’s tossed 15 TDs over the last month, which happens to be more than three teams – Arizona, Tennessee and Buffalo – have all season, combined.

Is he back? Yeah. He’s back.

But Sunday wasn’t about his arm or his legs – in a lot of ways, it was about his restraint. Two plays embodied Luck 2.0, two plays that give credence to the collective hope of a city and a franchise that the $140 million quarterback will be on the field a lot more than he has been in years past.

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Exhibit A: A reverse coach Frank Reich dialed up in the second quarter that sprung rookie running back Nyheim Hines toward the left sideline. Before a defender could close in, Luck scampered into the open field. His instincts would’ve told him to block, and that’s what he looked ready to do ... until he halted his entire body, in the middle of the open field, and stood there like he was setting a screen in basketball. The old Luck would’ve laid someone out; picture Quenton Nelson on a pull.

This time, Luck was never touched. Hines ran for 18.

“Maturation,” Reich called it, a wide grin on his face.

Exhibit B: Early in the fourth quarter, on a play that started from the Bills’ six-yard-line, Luck scrambled from the pocket and darted for the end zone. The old Luck would’ve thrown his body into the chaos; picture John Elway in the Super Bowl. Maybe the play ends with a touchdown, maybe it ends with Luck on a stretcher. He got closer, closer, closer ... until he slid out of bounds, shrewdly avoiding contact, fighting to live another day.

Which he did, drilling T.Y. Hilton for his second touchdown on the very next play.

“I told him, if you happen to get in scramble mode, take care of yourself,” Reich said later. “Be smart. The game wasn’t on the line at that point. Thankfully, he listened.”

To be clear: Luck probably makes that block in 2015. And he definitely dives for the end zone in 2012.

In 2018, he did neither.

“Time and place,” Luck said postgame. “I saw them closing down, and I decided it wasn’t worth it.”

“It’s taken a lot of introspection for him to get to that point,” offered left tackle Anthony Castonzo, Luck’s closest friend on the team. “I don’t see him diving in there on interceptions or doing crazy (stuff).

“We all know when he’s on the field, life is different.”

He’s right. Last season was a nightmare. This season, record being what it is, is still not a nightmare.

What’s also different, at least for Sunday: The Colts’ breathed some life into a sleepy run game, and that changed everything. Marlon Mack polished off his finest day as a pro with 126 yards and a touchdown. The team finished with 220 on the ground, the franchise’s fattest day since Sept. 30, 2007 when Joseph Addai and Kenton Keith ran all over the Broncos.

Luck - Colts played 'complementary' football Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck and coach Frank Reich recap team's win over the Buffalo Bills.

How this relates to Luck: He didn’t have to be Superman, didn’t have to throw 62 times for 400 yards, and that’s always a good thing for the Colts. His 156 yards Sunday was his lowest total of the season, and only the second time all year he’s been held under 200.

The other one? In Washington in Week 2, the Colts’ only other win this season. That’s not a coincidence.

“Keep calling runs, keep calling runs,” Luck kept telling Reich on the sideline. So the coach listened. And behind an excellent day from the offensive line – give Castonzo, Nelson and right tackle Braden Smith credit — it worked, over and over again.

A year ago, it was all spiraling south. Luck retreated to the Netherlands, not to be seen or heard from until after Christmas. The Colts lost six of their final seven.

And on Sunday, seven games into this ambitious comeback of his, the darkness firmly behind him, Luck showed up to the game wearing plaid pants and a beret, looking like an Irish sheepherder who’d decided to play bass for the Mumford and Sons. It was something he never would’ve worn in 2012.

Then he went on the field and played damn-near perfect, doing things he never would’ve done in 2012.

Call Star reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134 and follow him Twitter: @zkeefer.