Seven years ago, Andrew Luck entered the NFL as one of the greatest quarterback prospects of all time. He was expected to become this generation’s John Elway or Peyton Manning, and he never looked the part more so than on this touchdown pass:

Those who witnessed the Luck era will not soon forget it. The hype accompanied Luck was massive, because he was a perfect prospect. He not only had an arm that could do this, with little help from his legs…

But he also had legs that could do this, with a little help from his arms…

An engineering major at one of our nation’s finest schools, Luck’s mental tools have always been as impressive as his vast physical ones. He arrived in Indianapolis and was immediately anointed savior of a franchise that went 2-14 the prior year. Despite the lack of talent on the roster, Luck immediately guided the team to three straight 11-5 seasons, advancing farther in the playoffs each year. This time four years ago, Luck not only appeared like a player who was going to live up to the hype, but one who could exceed it. He was widely considered a superstar quarterback, and he was about to enter his age 26 season.

And yet that was as good as it ever got for Luck and the Colts. He suffered an endless string of injuries — some which he miraculously played through, others which sidelined him for long stretches — and now has retired. And when fans look back on Luck’s career 30 years from now, they won’t quite be able to understand who Andrew Luck was. As recently as this summer, Mike Sando’s poll of over fifty coaches and executives placed Luck as the 5th best quarterback in the NFL.

But that’s not how fans in two generations will look at Luck. Instead, they will view Luck the way younger fans now look at Joe Namath, or John Elway, or Troy Aikman: number one picks whose hype exceeded their stats.

Luck never won an AP MVP award, an honor bestowed upon John Brodie, Brian Sipe, Joe Theismann and Rich Gannon.  If those guys won an MVP, and Luck did not, how good could Luck have really been?

Heck, four different Colts quarterbacks — Johnny Unitas, Earl Morrall, Bert Jones, and Peyton Manning — have won an AP MVP.  Luck never came close to winning the AP or any other MVP award.  How good could Luck have really been?

Andrew Luck never led the NFL in Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, the best basic statistic to measure passing efficiency. John Hadl, Ron Jaworski, Tommy Kramer, Bernie Kosar, Steve DeBerg, Mark Rypien, and Chad Pennington each had one year at the top of the ANY/A leaderboard.  Luck never ranked higher than 5th in ANY/A. How good could Luck have really been?

Two quarterbacks selected after him in the 2012 NFL Draft have already won Super Bowls: Russell Wilson and Nick Foles.  Luck never even made it to a Super Bowl. How good could Luck have really been?

He never led the NFL in wins, or passing yards, or passer rating, or any of the other major efficiency stats.  He led the NFL in passing touchdowns once, as did Carson Palmer, Daunte Culpepper, Jim Everett, Lynn Dickey, Steve Bartkowski, Steve Grogan, and Joe Ferguson. Actually that’s not quite true: Everett did it twice. How good could Luck have really been?

Luck had some playoff success, but not much.  He won four games in the postseason in his career, as did Mark Sanchez and Nick Foles (to date).  Trent Dilfer won four playoff game in one postseason. How good could Luck have really been?

He led the Colts to 7 game-winning drives in one season, the second-most of all-time when he retired. Unfortunately, as of 2018, Derek Carr, Jake Delhomme, Don Majkowski, Jake Plummer, and Sipe all matched that feat, and it is Matthew Stafford that holds the all-time record with eight. How good could Luck have really been?

The statistics don’t paint the image of an all-time great.  Luck ranks 15th in ANY/A, and 17th in passer rating, among all passers from 2012 to 2018.  Post-Super Bowl Eli Manning, who has gone 47-64 during the Luck era with zero playoff wins, has thrown more passing touchdowns than Luck since 2012.  Andy Dalton has a better passer rating.  Alex Smith, who never saw a sack he didn’t like, has a higher ANY/A average since ’12. How good could Luck have really been?

Well, I’ll tell you.

Luck started 94 games in his career, including the playoffs. In 64 of those games — and only 64 of those games — the Colts allowed 28 or fewer points. That’s not exactly a high bar for defensive performance, but in those games, Indianapolis went 53-11, winning 83% of the time. Said differently, the Colts lost 37 starts in his career, and allowed 29 or more points in 70% of those starts.

Those are remarkable numbers. There are 37 quarterbacks who threw 1,000 pass attempts from 2012 to 2018, and who started at least 40 games in their career. I looked at the career records (so pre-2012 as well) for those quarterbacks in three criteria.

1) Points allowed in losses. Luck’s Colts allowed an average of 32.9 points per game in his losses, by far the most in the group. In fact, the difference between Luck and the #2 player (Palmer) is larger than the difference between Palmer and the average from this group.

2) Percentage of losses where the opponent scored 29+ points. Luck’s Colts allowed 29+ points in 70% of his losses; no other quarterback had to deal with that in even 60% of his losses. Most of his losses were games just about every quarterback would lose.

3) Winning percentage when the opponent scored fewer than 29 points. The top five quarterbacks by this method are Tom Brady at 84%, Andrew Luck at 83%, Peyton Manning at 80%, Ben Roethlisberger at 78%, and Aaron Rodgers at 78%.

How good could Luck have really been? Not good. He was remarkable.