More Praise for Colts QB Andrew Luck

Grass is green.  The sky is blue.  Water is wet.  Andrew Luck is really, really good.

This is the time of year for a lot of quarterback rankings, and the insane number of different lists might be enough to drive some people crazy.  For those of us who love reading about how good the Colts franchise quarterback is, however, it's pretty fun!

Earlier this month we talked about how ESPN's Mike Sando ranked Luck one of five "tier one" quarterbacks, placing him in the same category as Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Aaron Rodgers and ranking him fifth overall in the league.  Wrote Sando:

"Luck doesn't have the track record of the other Tier 1 QBs, and there was a clear gap in the voting between him and the top four. But people in the league love him almost unconditionally, and 14 of the 26 voters insisted upon putting him in the top tier (each of the top four received 25 of 26 Tier 1 votes).

"The evaluators think Luck has carried a subpar roster to a 22-10 record without much help. They see no limitations. They have zero doubt about his long-term stardom and felt strongly enough to give him 14 first-tier votes even while acknowledging he's below the Big Four at this early stage. Every other QB fell into the tier in which he received the most votes, and So shall Luck, even if his Tier 1 designation feels a bit premature."

And then there was NFL.com's Chris Wesseling's rankings at the beginning of the month too, where he ranked Luck in his third category of quarterback, "Pro Bowl Caliber."  He had Aaron Rodgers "Alone at the Top," and then in the category below him were "Canton Bound" guys, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Drew Brees.  In the "Pro Bowl Caliber" category was Ben Roethlisberger, Luck, Matt Ryan, and Phillip Rivers.  Wrote Wesseling of Luck:

"The Colts would have been a tire fire in 2013 without Luck, who put the team on his back following Reggie Wayne's season-ending injury. There were games that saw Luck escape consistent pressure to find the likes of David Reed, Weslye Saunders, Darrius Heyward-Bey and Griff Whalen down the field. A prodigy in the pocket and the league's most successful scrambler, Luck is already taking thefourth-quarter comeback to new levels. Don't be surprised if he's rivaling Rodgers for the top spot on this list next summer."

While David Reed and Weslye Saunders combined for just five catches in 2013, Wesseling's point is one echoed by almost everyone weighing in on Luck's 2013 season, and that is the feeling that Luck was doing most of the work himself.

Now, ESPN analyst and former NFL quarterback Ron Jaworski is conducting his annual ranking of the top quarterbacks in the NFL, and he too had high praise for Luck.  Jaworski ranked Luck at number five, behind just Manning, Brady, Rodgers, and Brees - who will unanimously be among the top four on pretty much any legitimate list you look at and who all are headed for Canton once their careers are done.  Jaws ranked Luck number five and Roethlisberger number six.  Jaws said of Luck:

"Luck has the most diverse skill-set of any NFL quarterback."

CBS's Pat Kirwan recently put together a fascinating list of the ten most influential people to the most influential sporting league in America, the NFL.  The list features all sorts of people, from the NFL Commissioner to owners to league executives to coaches to judges ruling over concussion settlements and even to players.  It's a really interesting list, and it features just two players on it: Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (number nine) and Colts quarterback Andrew Luck (number ten).  Kirwan wrote of Luck:

10. Colts QB Andrew Luck: Luck represents the league's future and his next contract likely will be the largest in history. He is already in the discussion of elite QBs, and every young player will work off his deal. NFL owners will be spending millions of extra money on their quarterbacks over the next 10 years because of Andrew Luck.

ESPN's Christopher Harris recently ranked Luck number five on the list of the top fantasy football quarterbacks for 2014, behind just Manning, Brees, Rodgers, and Cam Newton.  Athlon Sports recently ranked Luck as the seventh best quarterback in the league.  The NFL Network ranked Luck as the 30th best overall player in the NFL based on last year.  A few months ago, the MMQB's Andy Benoit ranked Luck as the NFL's best running quarterback.

In short, people like Andrew Luck.  They like Andrew Luck a lot.  This time of the year is the prime time for lists like these, and while they may just seem like an annoyance to some, to people like me who love hearing about how good Andrew Luck is, I don't actually mind the lists too much this year.