Andrew Luck Says Patriots Not On Colts’ Radar In 2015

Talk about shutting down some manufactured controversy. The always diplomatic Andrew Luck, quarterback of 2014 AFC runners-up, the Indianapolis Colts, has taken a decidedly stoic, team-first and politically-correct approach to his team’s Week 6 encounter with the New England Patriots.

“There’s a high amount of respect for [the Patriots] and what they do,” Luck told reporters earlier this week. “They’re the kings of the league right now and everybody would like to dethrone them. We’d like to dethrone them but you have to look at the season as sixteen games. There are fans and media who will hype up certain games and circle them in red on the calendar but, as a player, you lose sight of what’s important if you get into that mode.”

With the NFL season only some two months away from kicking off, undoubtedly the most engrossing storyline is Tom Brady’s four-week suspension and what it means for the New England Patriots in the season’s first quarter. By some cruel twist of fate, the first team Brady will meet will be the Colts inside of a ballistic Lucas Oil Stadium.

Luck doesn’t exactly strike us as a particularly malevolent man. It’s hard to picture him cornered in his room sticking pins into a fraying Bill Belichick voodoo doll. We are, after all, talking about the man who likes to complement defensive ends on a good hit after they have just finished rearranging his organs.

But Luck is a competitive player, and with the Colts looking like AFC heavyweights again in 2015, even he must recognise the significance of what it means to finally get one over on perhaps the greatest coach-quarterback duo in league history. He may not have the date circled, but he will come to win just the same.