The most desirable quarterback in football wears number 12 and will play at Gillette Stadium on Saturday night.
The Colts drafted Andrew Luck with the number one overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft following a 2-14 campaign the previous season. Peyton Manning, who underwent multiple neck surgeries in 2010 and 2011, signed with the Broncos in free agency that March.
Luck was handed the keys to the Colts' franchise in spring 2012, and has led his team to a 22-10 record and two consecutive playoff appearances since then. Luck secured his first career postseason victory after engineering a 28-point comeback win against the Chiefs last weekend.
Statistically, Luck's first two seasons in the NFL were better than Manning's. In 1998 and 1999, Manning threw for 52 touchdowns but also tossed 43 interceptions. Luck has thrown 46 touchdown passes and 27 picks, including just nine this year.
The quarterback rating and yardage between the two are similar. Manning's rating through the first two years of his career was 80.6, and Luck's is 81.5. Luck has thrown for 322 more yards than Manning through his freshman and sophomore seasons.
But arguably the biggest difference between Manning's and Luck's first two seasons is the success level of their teams. It took Manning's Colts six years to win a playoff game with him under center, whereas Luck's Colts have won in January less than 24 months after he was drafted. Luck's career winning percentage is .687, and Manning just surpassed him in that department this season – his 16th in the league. (Tom Brady's career winning percentage, for comparison's sake, is .775).
Though the sample size is relatively small, Luck has played exceptionally well in the biggest spots. He's orchestrated 11 game-winning drives in his young career, and eight fourth quarter comebacks in the regular season.
This is possibly the golden age of quarterbacks, as Luck, Robert Griffin III, Colin Kaepernick, Russell Wilson and Cam Newton all entered the league within three years of each other. Nine quarterbacks passed for more than 4,000 yards, and 25 quarterbacks amassed a completion percentage north of 60 this season.
But what separates Luck from his contemporaries is his ability to run a traditional pro-style offense – which he's been doing since his days at Stanford – without complications. Griffin, Kaepernick, Wilson and Newton all have big arms, but they rely on their feet more than Luck does. Quarterbacks who move out of the pocket at a high frequency will eventually have to change the way they play in order to preserve their careers. Just ask Griffin, as he underwent that transformation to varying degrees of success this season.
Luck – similarly to Aaron Rodgers – primarily uses his speed to extend plays in the pocket. He ran an impressive 4.59 in the 40-yard dash at the Combine in Feb. 2012, which matched Newton's time the previous year. Luck has also rushed for nine touchdowns in his young career.
Luck is a hybrid between the read-option type of quarterback and the traditional pocket passer like Brady, Manning or Drew Brees. He's the best of both worlds, much like Rodgers. Luck also, unlike most other quarterbacks who play their home games in a dome, doesn't play poorly outdoors or in cold conditions.
Luck's indoor quarterback rating is 81.8, and his outdoor quarterback rating is 81.3. This season, oddly enough, Luck played better outside (90.4 quarterback rating) than he did indoors (82.4 quarterback rating). Though Luck only played in two games with temperatures between 25-40 degrees this season, his quarterback rating was 105.9 in those contests.
It's rare for a quarterback who plays in a dome to not be a product of his home field. Brees' performance, for example, significantly worsens when he plays away from the Super Dome. Brees' quarterback rating at home was 126.3, and his quarterback rating outdoors was 81.7 this season.
It's early in his career, but Luck appears to possess the stones of Brady, mobility of Rodgers and stat-acumualting ability of Manning (to satisfy the fantasy owners out there). He's the future of the quarterback position, and it is quickly approaching.
Photos and GIF via Michael Conroy/AP, Andy Lyons/Getty Images and @BuzzFeedSports
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