Kansas City Chiefs: How Andrew Luck’s surprise retirement effects Chiefs
NFL fans were shocked on Saturday night when Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck announced he’d be retiring from football at the age of 29. How does this decision effect the Kansas City Chiefs?
More and more football players are opting to step away from the game at a younger age than usual. This was already becoming a trend, but it’ll now be a huge topic of conversation this week after Colts quarterback Andrew Luck announced his decision to retire from the NFL.
Luck is only 29 years old and was the first overall pick just seven years ago. For those who can remember that far back, during Luck’s senior season at Stanford, football fans joked that their team should “Suck for Luck”.
Basically, they wanted their team to tank, get the number one overall pick, and then take Andrew Luck with that pick. He was said to be the next Peyton Manning of football.
Filed to ESPN: Andrew Luck has informed the Colts he is retiring from the NFL, per source. There will be a press conference Sunday to make it official, but Luck is mentally worn down, and now checking out.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) August 25, 2019
Well, ironically enough, the Colts, who already had Manning, landed the number one overall pick due to Manning missing the year and took Luck with that pick. Luck’s career started off promising, but after a slew of injuries and a nagging calf injury this offseason, perhaps his retirement isn’t as shocking as it should have been, even with Luck having won the 2018 Comeback Player of the Year Award after missing all of 2017.
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While Luck stepping away from the Colts doesn’t really effect the Kansas City Chiefs much at all, there are some repercussions.
For one, it’s one less team to compete with in the AFC. The Colts came out of nowhere last year and earned a Wild Card berth in the AFC playoffs. They were eventually knocked out by our very own Chiefs in the AFC Divisional Round and turns out, that will be the final NFL game Luck will ever play.
With Luck now now out the door, the Colts are just one less team for the Chiefs to have to battle with down the stretch. Now the only legitimate AFC competition for Kansas City is New England, Los Angeles, and maybe Houston. It narrows down the competition quite a bit.
The other way this effects the Chiefs this year is that the two teams are playing each other in week five. That game is scheduled for Sunday Night Football and while it won’t have nearly as much hype now, it should be a fairly easy game for the KC Chiefs early in the year. Flex rules don’t come into play until later in the season, so it’ll still be a primetime affair for both teams.
It’s also a bummer that we won’t get to see a storied quarterback rivalry between Luck and Patrick Mahomes. Sure there are plenty of other quarterbacks that Mahomes will be able to have rivalries with, but Luck was one of the best in the league.
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While Andrew Luck’s decision to retire took the entire league by storm, obviously the injuries and all of rehabbing became too much for the former first overall pick. We’re seeing players retire at young ages quite frequently now and it’s eventually going to become the new norm in the NFL.