Stats & History Prove It: Andrew Luck Will Not Be Peyton Manning

How Terry Bradshaw panned out as a franchise QB has absolutely NOTHING to do with Andrew Luck’s chances to succeed in the NFL.

Also – Cam Newton is a franchise QB, not sure how he’s a N/A. Matthew Stafford is a franchise QB, not sure how he’s a N/A. Sam Bradford is a franchise QB, assuming he stays healthy.

Even some of your busts – Drew Bledsoe, Michael Vick, Alex Smith, Carson Palmer – have all had some pretty good seasons.

I’m more interested in looking the past 3 or 4 years. The NFL is such a QB-friendly league nowadays, it’s incredibly easy for young QB’s to succeed. Look at all of the QB’s drafted in the 1st round over the past 4 seasons:
-Matt Ryan: Success
-Joe Flacco: Success
-Matthew Stafford: Success
-Mark Sanchez: Early Success
-Josh Freeman: Early Success
-Sam Bradford: Early Success (Even Tim Tebow has had success from the 2010 draft class).
-Cam Newton: Big Success
-Blaine Gabbert: Too Early to Tell
-Jake Locker: Showed a ton of promise, but too early to tell
-Christian Ponder: Too early to tell.
-Andy Dalton (2nd round): Big Success

I’m not suggesting that all of these guys are “franchise QB’s” – but I can’t really remember the last big QB “BUST” that was drafted early.

I’m willing to bet there’s <5% chance that Andrew Luck flat-out busts. At the very least, I suspect he’ll have success on par with Matt Ryan (top10-15 QB early in his career). And he’s as good a bet as any QB prospect of our generation to be the next Peyton Manning.

A few years ago I heard someone begging to dump Eli Manning since the odds against two brothers being HOF quarterbacks was ever so so small. Well, he see where that statement stands at this time.
How college QB’s are judged at the time of the draft are unigue for each draft and team drafting at that space in time.
I was hoping Peyton would stay with a re-done contract based on playing time . Have/keep both QB’ s for about 28 M +/- ?

give me football players.

….. and he’s not

I guess my question for Colts fans were this:

If we had the #3 pick in the draft (i.e., we had no chance of taking either Luck or RGIII), would all of these bloggers still be cheering to just “cut” Peyton Manning?

No.

They would A) Pray everyday for his health to return and B) Pray that the Colts would use this 2012 Draft to “rebuild” the team around Manning to attempt to make a run in the next 3 to 4 years.

Instead, it seems that the bloggers all seem to think that it will be a Manning to Luck transition, and that Luck will maintain the Colts franchise level of success.

These same fans are going to feel foolish if Luck ends up having a “Tim Couch/David Carr” type of career and Manning goes on an wins another Super Bowl in another town. Even if he’s not a bust, and has a career similar to Carson Palmer — is it still worth it?

Look at my definition: Consistent Pro-Bowler who has made his team a perennial playoff team.

Palmer has been to 2 Pro-Bowls, and to the play-offs ONCE

Of the #1 Overall QB selections over the last 41 Years — which careers would you have over Peyton Manning?

two? Maybe three? We want the Colts to cut Manning and replace him with……… a QB who likely will never measure up

I still think the Colts trade down get two first round draft choices — one for an OT or DT and the other for a QB that sit and learn from Manning for 2 or 3 seasons

1. If the Colts don’t get Andrew Luck, who is going to be their QB as early as 2 and no later than 4 seasons from now? It is not so much that you don’t know as much as you don’t care. That is the problem. Too many folks are only concerned about the near future with Manning than the long term competitiveness of the franchise. If the Colts were a Super Bowl contending team, it would make sense. They are not. They are not even a playoff contending team, and this will be even more so the case after they have to release still more of the few remaining good players from their long run over the next couple of seasons.

2. It presumes that you need a franchise QB to win a Super Bowl. You do not. Or to put it another way: would Eli Manning be considered a franchise QB if not for his 2 Super Bowl wins? Of course not. More likely, Eli Manning would have been driven out of New York like Mark Sanchez is about to be. The Colts don’t need another Peyton Manning to win a Super Bowl. All they need is another Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger or Drew Brees (who not so long ago was dumped by the San Diego Chargers).

3. This is the biggest flaw: how many of these guys above were as good a prospect as Luck?

Bradshaw? No.
Plunkett? Maybe.
Bartkowski? No.
Elway? Yes
Testaverde? Maybe.
Aikman? Yes.
George? No.
Bledsoe? Yes. (And by the way: Bledsoe WAS a franchise QB. He was held back by a bad team around him: no OL, no WRs and no RBs most of his career, and that led to injuries. Parcells and the Patriots organization ruined a potentially great QB.)
Peyton Manning? Yes.
Tim Couch? No.
Michael Vick? No.
David Carr? No.
Carson Palmer? No. (Further, the Bengals did to Palmer what the Patriots did to Bledsoe. Tim Couch will also say that the Browns – a horrible organization – never gave him a shot either.)
Eli Manning? No.
Alex Smith? No.
JaMarcus Russell? No.
Matthew Stafford? No.
Sam Bradford? No. (Sam Bradford didn’t regress; he got hurt thanks to an atrocious OL.)
Cam Newton? No.

So, of the guys on your list, the only ones that were comparable prospects to Luck that failed was Testaverde. (Jim Plunkett won 2 Super Bowls. I refuse to list him as a failure. It is instead far more likely that the 49ers organization, which was atrocious at the time, failed Plunkett.)

So, your argument is basically that because Alex Smith, David Carr, Tim Couch, JaMarcus Russell and a bunch of other guys who never should have been taken #1 overall to begin with failed, that the Colts should not take a guy who is MUCH BETTER than all those other prospects. Yeah, that is rich.

Here is the deal. The Colts are almost certainly not going to win a Super Bowl with Peyton Manning because Manning is 36, has only about 3-4 good years left, and it is going to take at least 3 years to rebuild this team. And when Manning is gone, the Colts are STILL going to need a new QB. Let’s see you come up with your little “list” explaining why teams shouldn’t take QBs #1 overall 2-4 years from now when Manning isn’t even in the NFL at all.

The Colts are not choosing Luck over Manning. That would be idiotic. They are choosing their long term future over their short term future. Even if Luck will never be as good as Manning will be for the next 3-4 years, the fact still remains that Manning will only play for the next 3-4 years. If Luck is only as good as Joe Flacco, it will still mean that for the next 15 years the Colts will have a better QB than 26 of 32 NFL teams have.

belongs in Mexico. No validity whatsoever.

What’s the reason Peyton hasn’t won more Super Bowls? The Colts never put enough good players around him, especially on the O-line and defense. My point is that Luck doesn’t have to amass the passing pedigree of Manning. If the Colts build a solid defense and can run the ball a little, Luck then needs to be a very good quarterback who isn’t reckless with the ball. He must be a QB who’s among the top 10 in the league, but I’d prefer the Colts not build a team that is so heavily reliant on one player.

I’ll say this again….Just like everyone in Colts Nation, I truly love Manning – we can’t thank him enough for everything he did for this organization and city! He will always be a Colt……BUT, who says he can even play period???? YES, he has been cleared to play, but that’s not the question….the question is the arm strength/no feeling in his tricep! It just came out that it wasn’t 3 surgeries, it was actually 4! Who says he even wants to play anymore when a high risk injury (that could effect him for the rest of his life) could be just one hit/sack away.

That’s the point everyone is missing – it’s not so much if/when we cut him. He’s going to go somewhere else and “kick our ass” and win more Super Bowls. Again, I don’t think he’s even going to play anymore. It’s unfortunate b/c PM is GREAT if not the greatest…he doesn’t deserve to go out like this, but I think we all might have seen the last days of Peyton Manning

It’s not to move on and get our next franchise QB and have the same success for the next 10-15 years!

Yes it is true that only Peyton and Eli Manning have won Super Bowls as the #1 overall pick as a franchise QB since 1998, but think about it closely. What can a QB really do for you? He’ll make the offensive plays, he’ll put up 40 points if needed, but without a supporting cast and a defense, your team is essentially useless. Just look at the last 5 Super Bowls.
SB 41 – Colts, pass defense played well, run defense stepped up majorly especially Anthony McFarland
SB 42 – Giants, Strahan, Pierce, Osi, Webster, another great defense
SB 43 – Steelers, you know the capabilities of their defense
SB 44 – Saints, the Tracy Porter play, their defense was average, but they stepped up while we had Bullitt and an injured Freeney
SB 45 – Packers, rated #2 I believe behind their opponents, the Steelers
SB 46 – Giants, the pass rush, Tuck cleaning house

The difference between a championship team and a great team is defense. In an ideal situation, Manning and Colts would’ve have 4-5 Super Bowls, the difference is the weakness of the defense to step up in big moments.

As for Andrew Luck “won’t be Peyton Manning”, well there are no stats to prove it. There are only educated guesses and everyone has a different opinion. Andrew Luck might be better than Peyton Manning, hell he might be better than Joe Montana, but on the flip side, he could be worse than JaMarcus Russell, and hell he might be worse than Ryan Leaf. He could take a sack or get in a car accident and his neck situation might be worse than Peyton Manning’s. Hindsight is 20/20. Unlike many other positions, the QB position is the hardest to pan out. Did anyone think Aaron Rodgers might be the QB he is now being drafted 25th overall? How many teams regret not drafting Tony Romo at all? Did Jacksonville, Minnesota, or Tennessee see Andy Dalton as the prospect he was going to be?

The answer is all no. But yes, I’ve changed my mind. Indy must draft Andrew Luck and release Peyton Manning. It is best for both sides. If Manning leaves and goes to Houston or NY, or SF, he’s got 3 Super Bowl runs coming. Luck will put Indy in contention for the next 15-17 years.

If Manning stays, Indy will stay competitive for 3 years at most, probably won’t win a Super Bowl, then Indy will suck for many years while Luck might be tearing it up for a team like Cleveland.

Looking at the history of the QBs teams have taken #1 overall should caution against putting too much stake in Luck becoming a superstar. If we had a choice between drafting one of those guys and having a healthy Peyton Manning for four more years, the only guys on that list I’d take would be Elway, Aikman, and Peyton himself. And if we added the other QBs taken in the top 10 we add no more superstars, but lots of busts.

But the flip side to this is to look at the QBs that have become superstars during that stretch: late 1st rounders Marino, Kelly & Rodgers, 2nd rounders Montana, Favre, Brees, later round pick Brady. Undrafted Moon. Good QBs can be found without using a top pick, or even a top 10 pick. I say trade the #1 pick, get a QB later, and use the extra picks to shore up some other positions.

The reason that Andrew Luck wont be Peyton Manning has nothing to do with stats or history and it has everything to do with DNA.

BOOM!

Fact: Of the 19 #1 Picks used on QBs, only 5 (or 26%) of them have ever been Franchise QBs

That is the point of my post, some people prefer to act like children and do name calling instead of facing the facts.

FACT: EVERYONE of the 19 QBs taken were drooled over by so-called “experts” and draft gurus; hell, go back and read some of the things written about Alex Smith, David Carr, and Jamarcus Russell

FACT: The record of QBs taken in the first round of the draft is even worse, not limiting ourselves to just first overall quarterbacks selected.

My point is we have a proven All-Pro QB, who if he is healthy (big IF), is a much better certainty than using the #1 Pick on an UNPROVEN quarterback.

This is an unproven science — plain and simple.

He cleaned house. New GM and new coaching staff.

First… you have to draft Luck. Blame it on the agreement that came out of the lockout. Bottom line… Luck will be affordable.

You want to count on Peyton… (who we still don’t know if he’ll ever play again) a 36 yr. old QB who if he can come back… you can expect his skills to start diminishing in the next year or two. Plus he’s probably injury prone now… with his age and his past four surgeries. I read he can’t turn his head to the left… and with our young stellar OL… that’s a disaster waiting to happen. Although I’m sure Costanzo will never let anyone get by him. (sarcasm)

You all want the 12-4 seasons back… but it ain’t gonna happen. If he can come back… let him go to a team that’s competitive… to get his second ring. It won’t happen with the Colts and the team they can put around him next year.

Luck will more than likely be a guy you can build a team around and have success for the next 12+ years.