Exactly. They end up equating his early retirement with some form of treason. The NFL needs to quit this military bootlicking nonsense. And they need to stop having a national anthem before every game, military flyovers and a color guard. What even is the point of that?
Save that shit for government functions, state funerals, etc. Its a fucking football game.

This I agree with.

He was never as driven by on the field success as Manning. If he was, he'd still be playing.

That doesn't make Luck more cerebral though. It only means he has other priorities, that he is driven by different things.

I don't care if he is more cerebral or not

I do care if he is driven enough to keep playing.

In the end, despite his talent, I'd rather have a guy completely committed to the leadership position being a QB in the NFL entails. For a variety of reasons, he obviously is not.

I have no problem with a national anthem being played before sporting events. They even do it at Saratoga Race Track before the first race. Maybe the anthem should be played before the players come onto the field. It's not a place for protest of the USA (IMO) but if you put the players on the field, they should have the right to take a knee if that's how they feel. Just keep them in the locker room until the anthem is played.

I don't even think he's injured. Doctors and medical staff of all sort couldn't find anything wrong with his ankle. He had been moving fine in training sessions. He's just mentally shot and checked out, using the "ankle injury" as an excuse to quit.

I agree with this too

I started out a very long new thread on this, but didn't have time to do it justice this morning and frankly getting a bit sick of talking about it. Might do it sometime, but suffice it to say, I think this is exactly the case. I don't think anything is wrong with his ankle or calf, its a nice excuse to stop.

And I also think Ballard and Reich, maybe Irsay too, know there is nothing wrong with is ankle. They got sick of the continued procrastinating and symptoms of pain with no cause found and finally had a sit down, come to Jesus talk with him and said "Look your leg is fine, nothing physically wrong. We need a decision, are you playing this year or not? If you aren't ready for the season, we are moving on, we can't do this 'Will he or won't he' anymore, you are either all in on this or you need to retire" He chose to retire.

I think that is why it happened in the last few weeks. Camp was over, preseason is ending, season is starting, they needed a decision from him. Nothing physically is found wrong, are you playing or not?

This is all conjecture on my part, but I believe the following:

Peyton used HGH to recover from his neck injury and when he started playing again and would be tested, he stopped. That's when his arm went noodle on him.

Luck went to Europe to use whatever helped his recovery but was not legal in the NFL and after returning, he stopped doing it and his problems returned.

Both players temporarily recovered and had stellar seasons, but their problems returned

This is only a theory on my part, but I believe it.

HGH won't regrow nerves.

I don't think this is what happened

Like I said, it's only my opinion, but HGH will aid in nerve regeneration.

Last year, he said, was the most fun he’s ever had playing football. It just doesn’t make sense that he’d go from that to total burnout in a matter of months.

Then again, nothing about this whole deal makes sense.

I think there are things we do not know and never will. Some of it is simply not our business. The timing sucks, but I would guess Luck was having a hard time comin gto a final decision and the team was doing what it could to get him back on track and playing. I hate it, it is a bad look for him and the team, but it is what it is.

It's all marketing, strategy, and manipulation of the customer. I have a love hate relationship with advertising. I love the creativity and new ideas in it, but I hate that it is all ultimately curved towards manipulating people to buy your product. And it works it way into everything now. They want to associate themselves with patriotism and nationalism, become America's game. You support the military, well you should support our product as well, but it's just a corporation.

Reminds me of this Exec for a coal mining company, he would go out to these worker rally's dressed head to toe in American paraphernalia, he looked like a flag threw up on him. He would talk about sacrifice, supporting coal workers and the industry etc, but the policies he supported were anything but. Lowering safety standards for workers and they laid off tons of employees but made sure the execs got exorbitant multi-million payouts. It's all bullshit.

Completely agree... completely, he wanted out and needed a means to grease the skids. Dude is too bright to just come out and say "yeah, I decided a while back I was just not too into this anymore so I'm dippn', later". He knows he has to manipulate this to his benefit and he's also going to help the team from having to deal with "hey, didn't you know this kid was fragile as F, I mean damn is anyone minding the store"?

All the signs point to this just being the mutually agreed upon soft shoe way for him to exit.

o


Luck, a Stanford graduate who was a rare player who skipped out on the first 2 days of the NFL combine so that he could take his finals at Stanford, may be more cerebral than Manning in life overall ........ but in my rat's ass of an opinion, there was not a player in the history of the the game that was more cerebral than Manning strictly in terms of football IQ. The guy would come to the line and read defenses and audible accordingly like no other player before, during, or after him.


o

Peyton took Colts to 2 SBs and won 1.. he never left the Colts but was replaced by the guy who did leave the Colts.