Quarterback Andrew Luck's 2019 Output with Indianapolis Colts - Odds and Predictions

Quarterbacking for an NFL franchise that’s been to the playoffs way more often than not in the last two decades (fifteen out of twenty times) can’t be easy, but Andrew Luck has been effortlessly leading his postseason friendly Indianapolis Colts from under center since 2012.

Luck has brought his Colts to January games in four of his seven NFL seasons, and don’t forget one of the team’s non-playoff years – 2017 – only happened because he didn’t play at all due to having had surgery on his injured throwing arm.

By most expert accounts, Luck is a Super Bowl MVP waiting to happen, but now reports of a lingering calf strain that hasn’t improved since the spring has football experts doubting his ability to stay healthy, so we take a closer look at the odds and predictions of how productive this former Stanford quarterback will be during the course of this upcoming 2019-20 NFL season, including a brief analysis of whether he might beat the various overs and unders.

Quick Bio: who is Andrew Luck?

Andrew Austen Luck is a twenty-nine-year-old NFL quarterback born in 1989 in Washington, D.C. to mother Kathy and father Oliver, who is now commissioner of the XFL and who was a quarterback at West Virginia University and for the Houston Oilers.

In his career at Stratford high school, Andrew Luck threw for 7,139 total yards and 53 touchdowns, on top of rushing for 2,085 yards, becoming the fourth-ranked pro-style quarterback in 2008 and being named a four-star recruit by the prestigious Rivals.com.

Given that Luck was also co-valedictorian of his high school class, it was to nobody’s surprise that out of all of the impressive offers he received from colleges with respectable football programs (Northwestern, Oklahoma State, Purdue, Rice, Stanford, and Virginia) he chose Stanford, where academics are prioritized and the head coach then was the legendary Jim Harbaugh.

How did Luck do at Stanford?

In a nutshell, really well – including throwing for 9,430 total yards and 82 touchdowns with 22 interceptions over three years while running 163 times for 957 yards and 7 touchdowns, including a longest run of fifty-eight yards in his sophomore season.

During his career at Stanford, Luck was named First-team All American, won the Maxwell, Johnny Unitas Golden Arm and Walter Camp Player of the Year Awards and changed the way the Stanford football program was seen throughout the world.

Where once they rarely won more than ten games in a season, with Luck, Stanford won twelve games twice and eleven once and spent twenty-four weeks in the AP top ten while earning its first- and second-ever BCS bowl berths for two seasons in 2010 and 2011.

Why did Luck become an early fan of soccer?

As a result of Luck’s father being the general manager of two of the World League of American Football franchises, he spent a lot of his early youth living in London, England and Frankfurt Germany.

As a result of his European childhood, Luck developed an early love of soccer and says he supports “as many of the American fellows playing in the Premier League as possible.”

Luck has told the media that his favorite ‘football’ team is the Houston Dynamo, most likely because at one time his father was the franchise’s founding president as well as its general manager.

When did Luck get drafted into the NFL?

Despite the fact that Luck was ready to play in the NFL by the end of his sophomore season (he was considered “the most NFL-ready of all the draft-eligible quarterback prospects” by Sports Illustrated), Luck chose to play his junior year at Stanford and threw for 3,517 yards and 37 touchdowns with 10 interceptions while rushing for 150 yards and 2 touchdowns.

For the first time in a while, during the 2011 season, the Indianapolis Colts were forced to play without quarterback Peyton Manning and went 2-14, earning them the first overall pick in the NFL draft.

The general manager at the time, Ryan Grigson, took Luck with the first overall pick and they agreed to a four-year rookie contract worth $22 million.

What was the “Suck for Luck” campaign all about?

During the 2011 NFL season, some of the fans of teams without a franchise quarterback were calling for their teams to do horribly on purpose in order to earn the first overall pick in the upcoming draft where Andrew Luck would most certainly be available.

That effort was dubbed the “Suck for Luck” campaign and the winners turned out to be the team who lost their future Hall of Fame quarterback to injury and eventually trade.

That pitiful 2-14 team, the Indianapolis Colts, won the “Luck Sweepstakes” and thankfully the young intellectual football hurler from Stanford has proven to be a natural winner ever since.

How effective has Luck been in the NFL?

In short, Luck has been incredibly effective in the NFL.

In the six seasons that Andrew Luck has played in the NFL, he has completed 2,000 passes for 23,671 yards and 171 touchdowns with just 83 interceptions – or, in other words, he has averaged 333 completions for 3,945 yards and 28.5 touchdowns with 14 interceptions per season.

And in his six active seasons, Luck has taken the Colts to the AFC Championship Finals once, the Divisional Playoffs twice and the Wild Card Game once, consistent postseason accomplishments that hint of even bigger things to come, assuming Luck stays healthy.

Why didn’t Luck play in 2017?

Problems with his throwing arm had been haunting Luck throughout his successful 2016 season, and issues that had been lingering since 2015 finally forced him to undergo surgery at the end of the 2016 season to repair it.

Initially, the hope was that Luck would only have to miss a few games, but by November of 2017, it was obvious Luck wouldn’t play for the rest of the season so he was placed on injured reserve for the remainder of that year.

As usual, Luck was thinking outside the box and eventually traveled to Europe to seek additional treatment from specialists, followed by rehab in Los Angeles with a throwing coach until it was determined that his shoulder would not require any more surgery.

Has Luck’s shoulder injury kept him from being productive?

Another amazing thing about Luck is how effective he was despite having to basically play with an injury for a season in 2016 and then having to play for a year in 2018 right after a serious surgery on his throwing arm.

For instance, in 2016 with lingering shoulder issues that would eventually require the knife, Luck threw 346 completions for 4,240 yards and 31 touchdowns with 13 interceptions and was the eighth-most productive quarterback in the league that year.

And in 2018, despite missing all of 2017 and only being able to throw a smaller-sized football during the offseason, Luck completed 430-of-639 passes for 4,593 yards and 39 touchdowns with 15 interceptions and brought his Colts to the postseason yet again.

What have been Luck’s NFL accomplishments (so far…)?

Luck has broken too many NFL records to list, but the 4x Pro Bowler and NFL Comeback Player of the Year in 2018 has the most passing yards for a quarterback through his first three seasons (12,688) and has the most consecutive 350-yard passing games on the road with five.

The same goes for the number of Colts’ franchise records Luck has broken – many, including the most passing yards in a single season (4,761 in 2014) and most passing yards by a rookie quarterback in a single season (4,374).

Not only has Luck dominated the passing game in his six seasons, but he has also established himself and a mobile threat willing to run outside the pocket and (hopefully) elude the tackles.

Will Luck’s injured calf prevent him from being effective?

The same injured calf that kept Luck sidelined in the spring during OTAs is continuing to bother him now, according to recent reports, to the point that Luck continues to sit out practice and surgery have been considered.

Though Luck says if he played right now on his calf he’d be just “average,” he fully expects to be healthy by September and does not anticipate the need to go under the knife.

That’s despite not seeing any improvements ‘pain-wise’ since earlier this offseason.

How are the Indianapolis Colts predicted to do in 2019?

Given that the rest of the AFC has moved up a notch this offseason (especially in the AFC North where the Cleveland Browns look ready to make a postseason run), the Colts probably won’t be able to sneak into the 2019-20 playoffs with a 10-6 record like they did last year.

But now that Luck is fully healed, expect to see him take full advantage of receivers T.Y. Hilton and newly acquired targets Devin Funchess and receiving tight end Eric Ebron, all very comfortable pulling down footballs.

Last season, the Colts running game ranked just 20^th overall and now third-year running back Marlon Mack will continue to lead the 2019 Colts’ rushing attack after posting 1,011 yards from scrimmage off 212 touches and 10 touchdowns in 2018, averaging 4.8 yards per touch.

For more details on the Indianapolis Colts upcoming 2019-20 season, please check out our prior coverage: The Indianapolis Colts’ Biggest Offseason Moves 2019 – Odds and Predictions

What are the current odds and predictions on Luck’s possible 2019 production?

The two major categories that NFL quarterbacks are judged by are the total number of yards that they pass for during the regular season and the total number of touchdowns that all of those passes result in.

Below we take a look at the odds and predictions of Luck’s possible 2019 production and briefly analyze his chances of beating the overs and unders listed using his past numbers as a guide.

Here are Luck’ current odds for 2019:

Caveat: Luck must play in game one for action to commence.

If you are in New Jersey you can bet on Andrew Luck’s odds for the 2019-2020 NFL season on 888Sport and BetStars. Good luck!

Andrew Luck’s 2019 Regular Season Passing Yards

• Over/Under 4450.5 yards

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• Over/Under 47365.5 yards

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Analysis: In his six active NFL seasons, Luck has only thrown for more than 4,450 yards twice, posting 4,761 passing yards in 2014 and 4,593 last season.

Two other times Luck has come close to beating this over, throwing for 4,374 yards his rookie season and 4,240 yards in 2016 while he was suffering his injured shoulder, but ‘close’ doesn’t cut it when it comes to winning money.

However, this Colts teams is ready to win even more games and a healthy Luck is just the man to lead them, so chances are if this calf strain can be healed without surgery he will have one of his best seasons yet, so take the over here.

Andrew Luck’s 2019 Regular Season Passing Touchdowns

• Over/Under 32.5 touchdowns

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Just like with the previous bet, Luck has only covered the over twice in his six-season career, throwing for 40 touchdowns in 2014 and 39 last year.

With the addition of Funchess and Ebron to the roster, Luck now has two more reliable targets in addition to Hilton to throw balls at, so his numbers are bound to increase overall.

Again, this all stems on Luck staying healthy, not a given with the calf strain he’s currently rehabbing, but if his front line can continue to keep his body protected like they did last season, when they gave up only 18 sacks, Luck can certainly cover the over here and maybe even set himself a new career record in total touchdown passes.