Rodgers was right...What the Colts did was disgusting. Leaking that information while the Colts and Luck were still on the field was just classless as classless gets.

The man is married, has kids, earned $90 million in his career, AND was tired and on the fence whether or not he wanted to continue his career. Sounds to me he made EXACTLY the right decision. With those 275 lbs LB waiting to crush you, being on the fence is not where you want to be as an NFL QB. Go enjoy your family and the money you earned while you can still walk to the car and remember where you put the car keys.

There are different reasons people play this game. They love it, or they love the money they can make from it, or they love the joy it brings to others or for whatever reasons.

What we are now figuring out is that there is now a point when money alone isn't enough to keep players playing the game if they don't love it. They have to be in love with the game to play. There is just so much time and effort in this game that they have to have a passion for it.

I wouldn't be surprised if more players walked away at a younger age. We are already seeing some younger guys retiring early. Can't fault the person for doing what is best for them and their families. Hopefully for them though they are at peace with it. There is just a small window in which people can play this game, hopefully they don't miss that window if they decided later that they wanted to play again.

The Colts just ran out of Luck!

The NFL needs to get serious about real safety. Making up ejection rules for targeting and never using them during the game isn't enough. Practicing proper tackling technique needs to be required, not more or less banned.

I wouldn't conflate Lucks situation with everyone else. He made vastly more money than most in the league and has a degree in architectural design from Stanford (i.e. Has other interests he may pursue).

What the league really should focus on is helping guys who need medical assistance more than just 5 years after.

Football is a game, part of the entertainment business. Cory is right in that the players have a very finite time where they can perform. Most should do what Luck has chosen and retire when and how they can. It's usually when the excitement and pure joy of playing is gone, but for some it never leaves and the wear and tear on the body becomes a permanent payment for the rest of their lives.

I also wonder why fans would boo Luck like that, but the realization will eventually sink in and they will get behind another player and hope for another SB. In the mean time...I'm going to enjoy Rodger's last years, however long they last, and hope that he can bring another Lombardi trophy home to Green Bay.

Pressure. Depression. Fear. Enjoyment. Money can't buy happiness. It does make life easier. But there is More to Life. Life isn't always fair. There are no insurances. I believe Luck and others wanted more. Hope he finds it, and the freedom he needs to be happy.

The Packers are often accused of wasting Rodger’s career but with Andrew Luck the Colts have truly wasted the career of a great franchise QB.

Luck is probably the most talented QB to enter the league since Aaron Rodgers. Now instead of entering his prime seasons of an HOF career he is retiring from the game.

Due to poor drafts and poor management the Colts never put a decent OL in front of Luck and he has paid the price. His early retirement is a blow to the league and to their alleged concern about player safety. As a result the quality of play in 2019 is declining even further before a game is played.

How Luck’s retirement was handled is on the Colts. That organization has been under a cloud since they mistreated Johnny Unitas and they snuck out of Baltimore in the dead of night. What goes around comes around. I wish Luck the best in his future. Thanks, Since ‘61

There are about 2000 players in the league. And over 250 try to come in every year. Counting Borland and Luck as a problem out of 2000 is not much of a problem. Guys retire every year from injuries and the wear and tear on their bodies and then another will replace them hoping for a 10 year career. Just seems a small subset of why people leave. The NFL is tough on every body. Yet the players take the risk. The reward is great if you become a starter. Talk to a guy who worked in the construction industry for a life time. They have issues. Talk to any athlete when they are 50 or 60 and yes most have issues. Talk to anyone who does repetitive work and you will find they have issues.

No one is going to play football and get out free. Your body falls apart when you get old whether you played football or not. My point: Luck retired for the wear on his body and perhaps of few things the Colts did to frustrate him. And yes more players are going to retire due to injuries. It is all part of the game.

The NFL is in trouble. Moms aren’t going to let their kids play a game where they’re going to get seriously injured.

Who knew what and when is all speculation at this point. Maybe it'll all come out eventually, maybe it won't. Either way, the timing of this announcement is mind boggling, Luck deserves as much criticism as the Colts in this regard.

Forget about what happened earlier and later on, Favre was pressured by Thompson to make a decision about retirement immediately following the loss to the Giants in NFC Championship game - well before free agency and the draft so the team could plan accordingly. In this situation the franchise QB (and management) didn't announce retirement until well after free agency and the draft. The timing couldn't be worse for the Colts, a week and a bit before the start of the season.

I wasn't a fan of how the Favre situation was handled, but it's easy to understand the reasoning behind it. I'm even less of a fan of how the Colts situation was handled. Boo Andrew Luck. Boo Colts management.

Dark42. Some misinformation in that post

On his March 4 retirement presser, Favre specifically denied he had been pressured to decide. That’s over a month after he threw away the season....again. FA began in March. Draft was six weeks after his first retirement. He tried a trick in late April but we called his bluff and then he tried to force our hand in August.

Plus, you had the “groundswell “ of opinion in the organization that we’d be better off with Rodgers.

Following his faux retirement, he tried to get the Packers to release him so he could play for the Vikings and “stick it” to the organization..

Luck just is tired of the pain. There’s no ulterior drama.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

If it had been Rodgers who unexpectedly retired I hope we wouldn’t boo him. I mean, we’d play Boyle and try our best.

I had a great week at Al McGuire's basketball camp in Delafield at age 12 in the summer of 1974, in which the great Marquette basketball coach told us something like, "You use sports; don't let sports use you."
I'm hoping that even the players in the NFL who aren't superstars, and maybe even just subs, really take good care of the money they make in sports to get a good start in life once they're out of sports.
Use that $100,000, or whatever, to start a business or take college classes or get vocational training in a well-paying trade.
Use it to supplement your salary as a beginning high school teacher/coach or as an entry-level worker in a company.
Even just being in the NFL for one season can give a guy a real head start for the rest of his life. Sad to say, that money can go so fast; perhaps keep at least half of it for the future.
Perhaps try to find a responsible veteran on the team who can help you find good financial assistance.
The NFL is highly competitive -- seemingly hyper-competitive -- but so is life in America.
I hope and pray these young guys guard their treasures carefully and spend them wisely -- and find true friends along the way.

Oh, I remember comments when BJ Raji decide to retire, or when Eddie Lacy decide that he likes to eat more than to play football... Reactions of many was similar to reactions of Colts fans...

All this early retirement stuff only further fuels my frustration regarding Rodgers at the end of last year where he shouldn't have been playing exposing himself to unnecessary risk. He has already had several concussions in his career and of course had another concussion in a meaningless game late last season. Think about this! Here Rodgers does not want to play in pre-season games due to unnecessary risk of injury, but he certainly wants to play in regular season games where there is no upside for him to be playing. Pretty easy to figure out the reasons why. Additionally, both Boyle and Kizer would be much better off (particularly Boyle) with those extra reps and experience those last three games of last year.

Bottom line Rodgers cannot afford many more concussions and I believe it will be the biggest reason why he retires if he decides to retire early because of injury.

Each player has the right to weigh weather the pain/injuries are worth the money/love of the game. I respect all decisions as I remember Jim Otto, the great Raiders center, who even after multiple knee surgeries and hardly able to walk , say he would do it all again. They didn’t make crazy money back then but all of it never overcame his love of the game. Let’s thank all the players for allowing us to watch the greatest game invented and hope they do well after football

The Colts had Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck as their franchise QBs for the last 20 years. I can see them imploding this year and ending up with Alabama's Tua Tagovailoa in the 2020 draft. I hope for Tua's sake this does not happen. I'd rather the Colts try to "save money" and attempt to develop Deshone Kizer if the Jacoby Brissett kid does not pan out. Just no more "generational" QBs for this team. They do not deserve it.

The other item that factors in to early player retirements would be the high salaries. Even the low level guys average over a million a year. If they are smart with their money, they don't need to keep playing into their 30's.

It’s hard to keep secrets these days because of the web, it was bound to leak out just was bad timing. I think Luck is a smart person and he saw the writing on the wall so he made up his mind sooner rather than later. There are not many Brett Favre’s out there .