The Indianapolis Colts are a trendy pick to make the Super Bowl heading into 2019, and for good reason. They have a loaded offense, an improving defense and looked like one of the best teams in the league during the second half of 2018.
But in order for the Colts to truly take that next step, Andrew Luck is going to have to take that step himself.
We know that Luck is one of the best quarterbacks in football and is always going to be among the leaders in yards and touchdowns due to the fact that he has a cannon for an arm.
But the Luck we have seen during the playoffs is not the same Luck we have seen during the regular season, and that comes down to Luck not taking good enough care of the football, a problem which becomes much more crippling during the postseason.
In eight career playoff games, Luck has thrown 12 touchdowns to 13 interceptions and has completed just 56.4 percent of his passes while posting a passer rating of 73.4.
That is, well, not good.
But the thing with Luck is, he has always thrown a lot of picks.
Aside from his second season when he tossed up just nine interceptions, he has logged double-figure picks every year and has never thrown any less than 12 in any individual season.
This past year, Luck threw 15 interceptions. Yes, he also threw 39 touchdowns, but the 15 picks absolutely hurt, and in the playoffs when defenses are tougher, smarter and stingier, that becomes even more of an issue, as evidenced by the fact that Luck has even worse than a 1:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio in the postseason.
Now, to be fair to Luck, he is always going to throw more picks than your average quarterback. He is a gunslinger, and a gunslinger's mentality is always to go deep and try to fit the ball into tight windows.
Luck has the arm strength to make riskier throws than most other signal-callers, and that's fine. But there comes a point in time where you have to be smart and understand that your bravado may be hurting your team. Brett Favre was always guilty of this, which was a huge reason why he retired with just one Super Bowl ring.
The issue with Luck is, he doesn't even have a Super Bowl appearance yet. Obviously, that's not all his fault, as the Colts have run into some tough teams (hello, New England) along the way while also not always having the best defense, but due to Luck's playoff numbers, he is not without blame.
Luck has all of the talent in the world, but going into 2019, he needs to do a better job of making safer decisions. That means sometimes making the short and intermediate throws rather than trying to throw bombs all afternoon.
Just look at Tom Brady. The guy has a rocket arm, but most of his throws come on those short and intermediate routes, which allows the Patriots to move the chains and eat up the clock.
Maybe Luck needs to start doing more of that instead of attempting to go for it all.
Indianapolis absolutely has what it takes to get to the Super Bowl, but it's on Luck to ensure that the Colts are always in the best position to win.
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