Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that the Colts have reached a financial settlement with QB Andrew Luck and will not recoup any of the money they’re owed from him.
According to Schefter, the Colts could have attempted to recoup $24.8 million from Luck. However, the team will allow him to keep the money.
Luck would have had to pay back $12.8 million as a pro-rated portion of the $32 million signing bonus and another $12 million in roster bonuses he was paid in March.
Colts owner Jim Irsay estimated that Luck was walking away from half-billion dollars in potential earning by retiring.
“It’s a tough thing, look it, he’s leaving $450 million on the table potentially,” Irsay said. “I mean, a half a billion dollars, and he’s saying, ‘You know what, I want to have my integrity. I have to be able to look (wide receiver) T.Y. (Hilton) in the eye, look my teammates, look coach, look (GM) Chris (Ballard) and say, I’m all in,’ and he just didn’t feel he could do that.”
Some teams have elected to recoup money from retired players like the Lions did with Calvin Johnson, which wound up creating issues between the two parties.
Luck, 29, is a former first-round pick of the Colts back in 2012 out of Stanford. He finished the third year of his six-year, $139.125 million contract that included $87 million guaranteed and was set to make base salaries of $9.125 million, $11 million, and $11 million over the final three years of his deal.
For his career, Luck threw for 23,671 yards while completing 60.8 percent of his passes to go along with 171 touchdowns and 83 interceptions over the course of six seasons and 86 games.
Luck was the 2018 Comeback Player of the Year and a four-time Pro Bowl selection.
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I wonder if they’re regretting that decision. They clearly are never going to recover from the Luck debacle. He appeared too good to be true, and he was. I much preferred him to any Colt qb ever(I’m a lifelong Colts fan). He was more physical than Unitas…MUCH more physical than Manning, not to mention minus all the prissiness….he played a bona fide man’s game. Think about it….we had the good fortune to actually get a qb who was a legitimate FOOTBALL PLAYER….who didn’t cry when he got hit…and then he turns out to be the guy who retires before even hitting his prime. Probably the single most inexplicable NFL story of all time. What star retires so early? Has this EVER happened? Quarterbacks, if anything, usually hang on too long. And we get the one guy who just LEAVES…with probably a decade of football left in him…Now they’re reduced to yearly veteran band aids…and the nucleus of talent won’t last forever…so by the time they are in position to draft a top 5 qb again, he’ll have no one around him….Thanks, Andrew.