Colts still having no Luck at quarterback
Mystery ailment keeps Indianapolis starter on sidelines with Week 1 fast approaching
News and views from around the NFL with Week 2 of the pre-season underway:
1.
Colts have no luck in recent years with Luck.
NEWS: Quarterback Andrew
Luck still hasn’t practised this training camp. Indianapolis
Colts doctors still unsure what exactly is wrong with Luck’s painful calf/ankle area, but head coach Frank Reich wants to determine who his Week 1 starter is by the end of next weekend.
VIEW: For his first three or four NFL seasons, the 2012 No. 1 overall pick lived up to that billing. That’s because Luck’s surrounding talent was good enough for him to lead the Colts into the playoffs each year and because he stayed healthy and played well, if not great.
Then the talent dipped, his performances dipped accordingly and he started getting banged up. Big time.
Luck played with a lacerated kidney and torn labrum a few seasons ago — convincing signs he’s no wuss. But after playing through a seriously messed-up shoulder deep into the 2016 season, he finally had corrective surgery the following January — then missed all of 2017 as his recovery inched along. It didn’t help that the club, especially owner Jim Irsay, kept sending out mixed signals that year as to when Luck might be back.
Luck returned last season, finally fully healed, after sitting out pre-season games. He was rusty for a time, then looked like the Luck of old as he and the Colts overcame a 1-5 start to make the AFC playoffs as a wild card. Indy even knocked off the Texans in Houston before getting thumped the next week at Kansas City.
Now another mysterious injury. We were told in the spring and at the start of camp he had a calf problem. Nothing serious; just holding him out to be cautious.
But the issue lingered. Specifically, the pain Luck felt in his calf lingered. The guessing and second-guessing ramped up in Indy, much as it did two years ago.
This week we learned his injury might involve the ankle, too. Irsay muddied the waters when he told an interviewer, apparently incorrectly, that the source of Luck’s injury was a small bone near or around his ankle.
GM Chris Ballard soon backtracked, saying it’s something in Luck’s calf/ankle area and that’s all they know for sure. Ballard could not guarantee Luck would be ready for Indy’s season opener Sept. 8 against the Los Angeles Chargers.
With each day Luck misses, Jacoby Brissett looks likelier to be the Colts’ Week 1 starter.
2.
Landry who?
NEWS: The XFL, America’s latest pro spring football league set to give it a go in February, signed its first quarterback Thursday: former Pittsburgh Steelers backup Landry Jones.
VIEW: Hey, don’t expect to raise your eyebrows over any XFL quarterback signing unless the guy’s name is Colin Kaepernick. The XFL 2.0 will likely continue signing quarterbacks until its eight teams hold a QB draft in October, per ESPN.
But really, who are they gonna get who isn’t a former NFL backup whose career playing time in August NFL pre-season games probably dwarfs his meaningful playing time in real games from September to December? Yeah, probably no one.
Some 30 NFL “camp arms” are going to be jettisoned on cutdown day Aug. 31. That’s when the league’s 32 clubs must cut 90-man rosters to 53. The best the XFL probably can hope for is to next sign a bunch of ham-andeggers the likes of David Fales, Josh Woodrum, Joe Callahan, Delvin Hodges, Alex Tanney and Tim Boyle. Make you excited for XFL? Exactly.
3.
Will Tom Brady really never coach?
NEWS: On Thursday, the 20thyear New England Patriots passer told reporters after the final joint practice this week with the Tennessee Titans in Nashville that he will not coach whenever he’s finally done playing.
“Oh, hell, no, I’m never coaching,” Brady told reporters. “Playing is enough for me.”
VIEW: The only thing new is Brady’s degree of definitiveness. Just six months ago, I asked him if he’d decided whether he’d like to get into coaching some day. .
“I would never say never … about anything,” Brady told me, “but I’ve never really thought about that as a goal.”
A quarterback is as much a coach on the field as any position in sports. So isn’t he already a coach of sorts?
“I know,” he said, “but I think I would get frustrated. Because I would see someone do it and I’d be like, ‘What are you doing?!’ You know? When normally I’m the one doing it. And sometimes I do that to myself — you know? — when it’s a bad throw or a bad read. But I don’t know. I’ve learned a lot from our great coaches from (head) coach (Bill) Belichick all the way down … In this game you need great coaches. They work so hard to put us in a position to succeed and I’ve had so many great coaches over a long period of time.”
Thing is, Brady has said repeatedly he plans to play until 45. He’s 42. If he went from probably not to “hell, no” in six months, maybe he’ll swing the other way before he hangs up his helmet. JoKryk@postmedia.com twitter.com/JohnKryk