LUCK IN NO-WIN SITUATION
As QB cashes in with Colts, what will fallout be?
Andrew Luck is about to get paid, negotiating with the Indianapolis Colts a contract extension that will give him the top salary in NFL history. And that puts him in a no-win situation.
This is a good problem to have as far as problems go, but even on the cusp of getting a contract that could be worth a quarter of a billion dollars, Luck faces a conundrum that the Colts — and their fans — need to understand.
The Colts do understand. Owner Jim Irsay and general manager Ryan Grigson don’t like it, and they’re trying to talk Luck over to their side, but they get it.
But do Indianapolis fans understand that Luck is going to hammer the Colts during these negotiations in part because he has to hammer them?
It’s the union. And it’s his teammates. Luck is a member of the NFL Players Association, as are the other 52 members of the team’s 53-man roster that will enter the 2016 season, and the union needs him to maximize his contract.
That’s an easy sell for most players, but Luck’s not normal. He’s embarrassed by the whole topic. He’s as accommodating as he can be with the news media, but there’s one sure way to get Luck to clam up: ask him about his contract. He fidgets nervously or even scowls. The only time he entertained a question about finances was when asked if the rumor was true that he would become the first NFL player to get a fully guaranteed contract.
“No,” he said in April. “But it would be nice, right?”
More than nice for Luck, it would be a historic victory for the NFLPA, bringing NFL contracts in line with those in Major League Baseball and the NBA, where players get the full value of their contracts even if they’re injured or released in the middle of them.
Luck is not getting a fully guar- anteed contract, but he will become the highest-paid player in NFL history, probably for the foreseeable future, and he’ll do that in part because it’s in the best interests of his teammates. Even if it’s not in the best interests of his teammates. Hence, the no-win situation. Very few negotiations can influence future contracts around the league, but Luck’s will. The higher Luck pushes the overall ceiling, the better the contract for whoever’s next. The union needs Luck to get every buck he can get, even if it means gobbling up the Colts’ salary cap and making it more difficult for Luck’s team to win big.
This is complicated stuff, including Luck’s value, which can be interpreted different ways because of last season’s disaster. Luck played seven games and put up the worst numbers, pro-rated for a full season, of his four-year NFL career. Entering the 2015 season, however, Luck was off to one of the best three-year starts in league history.
Before last season Luck was an ironman winner, starting all 48 games and posting a 33-15 record. Last season he was injury prone and went 2-5.
But in his final two games — against the two eventual Super Bowl teams — Luck took the Carolina Panthers to overtime (a 29-26 loss) on the road and then led the Colts past the Denver Broncos 27-24 despite suffering a lacerated kidney.
Whatever happens with his contract, the Colts will have a franchise quarterback to build around for the next decade. But they won’t have the financial flexibility of most teams to compete for the best possible supporting cast.
Case in point: Coby Fleener is a big-time tight end — and one of Luck’s best friends — but he’s gone in part because Indianapolis, having paid wide receiver T.Y. Hilton and left tackle Anthony Castonzo and knowing Luck’s contract was coming up, had to choose between Fleener and Dwayne Allen. It would have loved to have signed both but couldn’t. It picked Allen. Fleener went to the New Orleans Saints.
“We’re being prudent in our approach, based on the overall environment we’re working in right now with our cap space, with roster bonuses on the horizon, contracts on the horizon, the draft on the horizon, and then wanting to be (cap-healthy in) ’17 and so forth,” Grigson said in April. “We have to have a pretty streamlined approach to this.”
Streamlined approach. That’s the Colts now, just as it was the Colts during the Peyton Manning era, when Manning commanded between 15% and 20% of the team’s payroll. Indianapolis had to skimp at certain positions and won only one Super Bowl (2006 season) during his time there.
History could repeat itself with the Luck contract, though Irsay is laying the foundation for Luck to take one for the team and agree to a contract that is “Colts-friendly as we approach even the next decade.”
“We know that he’s an outstanding player in this league,” Irsay said last week, “and we also know that we have to be able to field a team around him.”
Indianapolis’ front office needs Luck to sacrifice several million dollars for cap space. His teammates need him to sacrifice money for the sake of the team, but they need him to maximize his contract for the sake of their own future earnings.
The league is watching. The union is waiting.
The clock is ticking.
Doyel writes for The Indianapolis Star, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK.