Why Andrew Luck is the New King in Indianapolis

I've been searching my brain for a Star Wars related metaphor for what happened between the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos last week and I think I've nailed it. At the start of episode three (ignore the fact it sucked for a moment) Anakin Skywalker kills Count Dooku (Christopher Lee would be a perfect sith lord in real life) on what becomes the real start of his turn to the dark side.

That is pretty much what Andrew Luck has done here, he has defeated his older foe, on the way to becoming an even more powerful quarterback/jedi.

Moving onto football talk now, Luck's victory over Manning is surely a sign of things to come in Indianapolis. It is well documented that Peyton Manning's least favourite month to play football is January, with an 11-13 record in the postseason. Since moving to the Broncos three seasons ago Manning is 38-10 in the regular season but only 2-4 in the playoffs. He is also the holder of most 'one and done' playoff appearances with nine in his career. Obviously I'm not saying Manning is a bad quarterback, infact he is one of the best ever, but when the pressure is on there are a lot of other players I would take over him.

Just for a point of reference, Tom Brady has nine championship game appearances to Peyton's nine one and dones, not to mention the rings too.

So Andrew Luck is going to be better than Peyton Manning? Well looking at the numbers through the first three seasons of each player's career we can see if that is the case so far: Manning had 85 passing touchdowns to 58 interceptions, where Luck has had 86 touchdowns and only 43 interceptions. Yardage-wise Luck has thrown 12957 to Manning's 12287 yards, not to mention all the scoring Luck has done on the ground.

At this point it is a waiting game to see who will go down in history as the better quarterback, as Luck has only three seasons under his belt to Peyton's 17. I my opinion it will take at least a couple of Super Bowl wins for Luck to be considered better than Manning, and through the rest of his career he will have to keep up the high level of play and stay healthy and all the usual requirements for a long successful football career, which for the most part Peyton has done incredibly well.

Luck's mobility and size make him such a threat on the ground as well as throwing the ball, which makes up for the advantage Peyton has over him in the mental side of the game. If Luck wants to come over to England and play some rugby I think he would be insanely good, size and speed is a great combination to have.

The path to glory will be long for Luck and he starts it this weekend against Tom Brady and 'The Emperor' Bill Belichick in the death star that is Gillette Stadium.

Ok that didn't work as well if Luck is Anakin, let's just look forward to the game on championship Sunday.