Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
It’s been seven years since Andrew Luck brought his NFL career to an abrupt end less than two weeks before the start of what would have been his eighth season. One of his teammates recently suggested that the decision was the result of an ultimatum that was issued by the team’s GM, but the retired quarterback denies that was the case.
In 2011, the Colts went 2-14 after Peyton Manning was sidelined with a neck injury. They subsequently earned the top overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft, and they used it to usher in a new era by scooping up Stanford standout Andrew Luck.
The QB led Indianapolis to the playoffs with an 11-5 record while earning the first of the four Pro Bowl nods he received during a career that most people assumed would last longer than it actually did.
In 2018, Luck was named Comeback Player of the Year after bouncing back from a shoulder injury that sidelined him for the entirety of the previous campaign. All signs pointed to him suiting up in 2019, but on August 27th of that year, he dropped a bombshell when he revealed he had decided to retire at the age of 29 while the Colts were in the middle of a preseason game.
He pointed to the toll the game had taken on his body while justifying the move, and he is now pushing back against a teammate who asserted there was more to the story than he’s let on.
Andrew Luck denied he was pressured into retiring by Colts GM Chris Ballard
Retired tight end Eric Ebron signed with the Colts as a free agent ahead of what ended up being Luck’s final season, and on a recent episode of the On My Soul podcast, he claimed Luck’s decision to hang up his cleats could be traced back to Colts GM Chris Ballard.
Ebron said Ballard had gotten fed up with Luck’s approach to rehabbing to the point where he threatened to go in another direction if he didn’t commit to playing, saying, “He tells Andrew you’re either playing this year or we’re moving on.”
That would have been a very bold strategy that did not pay off based on how the Colts have fared since Luck decided to move on himself, but according to a response he shared with Fox59, that was not actually the case:
“Chris and I had a wonderful partnership, especially through my decision to retire, and we remain close. Any notion of internal pressures that influenced my decision are without merit.”
That should settle that.