Andrew Luck had a solid minicamp with the Indianapolis Colts and feels that he is a better quarterback because of it entering the 2016 NFL season.
As with all 32 teams in the NFL, the Indianapolis Colts finished up their three-day minicamp this week. Franchise quarterback Andrew Luck, who is coming off a massively disappointing, injury-riddled 2015 NFL campaign, believes he is a better quarterback because of this minicamp.
Luck missed nine games last year with a lacerated kidney, as the Colts stumbled to an 8-8 record and missed the AFC Playoffs for the first time in the Luck/Chuck Pagano era (since 2012). Luck said the following about his solid minicamp this past week, “Physically and mentally I feel like I have gotten better as a quarterback, better as a thrower and better at understanding this offense.”
This will be the first season without former offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton who Luck had worked with since their days in the Pac-12 with the Stanford Cardinal. 2016 will be the first year that Luck will play in Rob Chudzinski’s offense. He also has a new voice in the quarterbacks room in quarterbacks coach Brian Schottenheimer.
It seems that Luck grew a ton last season after having to miss half of the Colts’ games because of injury. Without Luck under center, the Colts simply don’t have the firepower to hang with the AFC elite.
Now that Indianapolis’ AFC South rivals have amped up their quarterback play in recent years with Blake Bortles of the Jacksonville Jaguars in the 2014 NFL Draft, Marcus Mariota of the Tennessee Titans in the 2015 NFL Draft, and most recently, Brock Osweiler of the Houston Texans in 2016 NFL free agency, there are no guarantees that the Colts will run away with the division as they usually do when they have a healthy quarterback.
If Luck progresses in 2016 like he says he has during the Colts’ 2016 minicamp, expect Indianapolis to be in the thick of things in the AFC behind the great leadership of their perennial Pro Bowl quarterback.
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