Luck preps for 1st NFL road test

Associated Press

ANDERSON, Ind.

Andrew Luck brought his revised to-do list to work on Tuesday.

Make better protection calls. Complete more passes. Get ready for his first NFL road test at Pittsburgh.

For now, it’s short and simple.

“I think you just try and get better,” Luck said Tuesday when Indianapolis returned to practice at Anderson University. “Obviously, it was nice to go out and play a game and do some good things, do some bad things.”

Bad things? Good luck finding those in Sunday’s 38-3 victory over St. Louis.

All Luck did in his first NFL game was go 10 of 16 for 188 yards with two touchdowns and a 142.6 quarterback rating, leading the Colts to their most lopsided preseason win since a 35-0 shellacking of Washington in 1966.

Since then, analysts and observers have spent countless hours heaping praise on the man who had been called the most NFL-ready quarterback since Peyton Manning entered the league in 1998. Luck lived up to the billing Sunday.

He was poised in the pocket, unflappable under pressure, mobile and in total command of what the play-calls used against the Rams.

The rave reviews aren’t just coming from outsiders, either.

“I was surprised by his athletic ability and his decision-making as a rookie. His pocket-presence is very good,” said Colts cornerback Justin King, who played in St. Louis when Sam Bradford was the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year. “We’ve seen he [Luck] can throw and we know he’s smart, but with the live bullets coming, he responded very, very well.”

Nobody understands better than Luck that it was only one game, and a preseason game at that. So on Monday, a day off, Luck was back in the office reviewing game tape to figure out where he can improve.

“I think I could have avoided getting hit a couple times, just seeing the pressure and throwing a lot, or changing the protection,” he said. “So that’s something hopefully we will get better at.”