eh, i'm no football consultant, i'm not giving advice, just a personal opinion, we're all free to have them. i'm just going to politely disagree with jason_s reading of the colt's situation. i feel strongly that if you have the opportunity to take luck, you take him and nothing anyone can say will change my mind about it and i'm sure nothing anyone says will make him change his mind either.
yes i watched the falcons philly's game...i don't care about ryan's hit and doing the split. it didn't make me think any differently of him. i think he's a top 8 QB in the league and could care less if he's tough or not
I can completely respect that. I just want to counter with a couple more points that may give a little more insight into why I feel the way I do:
1) The only reasons Luck is regarded more highly than the other top prospects are that he runs a pro-style offense and his mechanics and technique are, for the most part, more polished. This puts him in the best situation to be able to start from day 1 in the NFL. Assuming Peyton does come back and is not forced to retire, the slight issues with mechanics, footwork etc that other players have can easily be coached out of them (see Aaron Rodgers for just one example...if Rodgers had been as polished as Luck he would have been a top 5 pick and a starter from day 1. However he wasn't and that's why the Packers were able to get him at the end of the first round. There is no reason to believe that his natural talent and ability is higher than the other top rated prospects....he is simply more polished.
2) Peyton Manning intentionally took less money than he otherwise could have had with his new contract. He did this to give the front office more leverage to resign key players at the end of the year and to have the flexibility to bring in FA's if there were any available who could make a significant, immediate impact. IMO it would be a slap in his face to turn around and spend that money on the guy who will only see the field when Peyton no longer can. We can just as easily trade pack and receive probably unprecedented compensation due to the fact that it's Andrew Luck and the hype around him is incredible. Look at what the Falcons gave up to move up for Julio Jones. Or a few years back when the Browns moved up to take Brady Quinn. Also remember that the Browns have 2 first round picks this coming draft. I'd have a hard time believing they wouldn't package those together as well as who knows what else for a prospect like Luck. I don't believe they are so committed to Colt McCoy (who was drafted in the 3rd round to be brought in as a project...not a day 1 starter).
3) I've watched games on each of the top rated QB's with a couple of exceptions, and so far I've been most impressed with Nick Foles. Yes, Arizona runs a spread offense so one could argue his numbers are inflated because of this. However, he also has absolutely no running game to rely on. Arizona so far is averaging less than 60 yards rushing per game. The majority of their offense comes on the arm of Nick Foles and even considering that he's still completing over 75% of his passes.
4) Finally, I'm going to say it....I think Andrew Luck is overrated. The experts like to say that QB's from spread offenses are products of their system. I would counter that the same can be said of Luck. Stanford runs a very effective power running game and they have a couple of excellent TE's that are in the mold of a Jason Whitten. They're big, strong, great blockers but also excellent receivers. A lot of Luck's success is based off of using big, power formations with multiple backs and TE's, establishing the run and then torching the defense with play action. Several of his passes were completed for huge gains because the defense sold all out on the PA fake and a TE was left wide open running a long post route. Luck also has the benefit of a great offensive line. However when there is pressure, Luck looks average (don't get me wrong, I know this is true of most QB's). He does have good pocket awareness but still makes questionable throws and often underthrows because he throws off his back foot in those situations.
In the end, I'm certainly not saying Luck will be a bust. However the fact remains that a large amount of the hype around him is how ready he is to start from day 1 and not due to him simply more natural talent than the other top rated QB prospects. He's simply been better coached up to this point in his career. Unless Manning retires, we don't need him to start from day 1. We can just as easily take one of the other QB's who have just as much natural talent as Luck and simply coach and mentor them to get rid of the minor issues with mechanics and/or footwork.
