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It took some time for former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck to return to a football field or locker room.
ESPN’s Seth Wickersham reported that one of the first times Luck did get back in a football atmosphere was when speaking in front of players from the Summit High School team in Colorado.
After he spoke briefly, the players received the opportunity to ask Luck questions. As if tutored first by seasoned credentialed media members, the high schoolers pulled no punches with their inquires.
One of the kids asked Luck to share his biggest regret from his NFL career.
“Luck cursed in his mind, having hoped for a softball ,” Wickersham wrote. “‘Good question!’ he said, and he decided to tell a group of kids what he had never said publicly:
“I regret the timing of when I retired.”
Luck Shares He Felt ‘He Had Let People Down’
Throughout his long-form piece on the end of Luck’s career and life after football, Wickersham portrayed the former Colts quarterback as becoming a person he didn’t exactly want to be because of the pressures of being an NFL quarterback.
Luck took to heart the idea that he was the sole team leader in Indianapolis and made it his responsibility to be the very best he could be for his teammates, coaches, and fans.
That weighed on him a lot with his early retirement, which was shocking and somewhat unpopular at the time of its announcement. News broke of Luck’s retirement during a 2019 preseason game, which resulted in Colts fans booing Luck off the field.
“He felt he had let people down, for which he had to learn how to forgive himself,” Wickersham wrote. “What mattered to him most about football, what he wanted the kids to learn, was the ‘uber accountability.’ He knew that his own ideas of accountability and of football were more complicated than the romantic version that he had shared.”
Luck Shocks NFL World With Preseason Retirement at 29
The ex-NFL quarterback didn’t say if given the opportunity again what he would do differently. It’s hard to believe he would say retire sooner, and given the status of his mental health at the time of his retirement that Wickersham conveyed in his recent article, continuing to deal with injuries and retire after the season might not have been better either.
Perhaps one difference Luck might have preferred was for the news of his retirement not leaking to the media.
Wickersham reported that Luck threw a birthday party for his wife, Nicole, days before he planned to announce his retirement. At the party, he told nearly everyone in attendance his plan to step away from the Colts.
The source of the leak is not known, but ESPN’s Adam Schefter broke Luck’s retirement plans about 24 hours prior to when he wanted to announce it.
In the aftermath of his retirement, Luck didn’t receive a lot of criticism for retiring, but certain media members loudly questioned the timing. With Luck stepping away just weeks prior to the season, the Colts were without a quarterback for 2019. Without Luck, Indianapolis went from a Super Bowl contender to a below .500 club.
That was the source of a lot of guilt for Luck, and he revealed that he’d change that if he could.
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