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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Andrew Luck spent three offseasons fighting his way back from injuries. Now he can reap the reward.After returning to the field T.J. Green Jersey Stitched , making it back to the playoffs, regaining his Pro Bowl form and collecting The Associated Press NFL Comeback Player of the Year Award, a healthy Luck now intends to take a rare and well-deserved break from football.“I’ll be honest, I probably won’t throw for a while,” he said before cleaning out his locker. “There will be tweaks, there will be changes to what I do (this offseason) but all of it is geared to one, make me as happy as possible and two, set me up to improve as a quarterback and improve as a person.”How Luck will spend his downtime is unclear.Peyton Manning broke the monotony with hunting trips. Brett Favre worked on his ranch. Tom Brady won a Super Bowl after changing last year’s offseason routine to spend more time with his family and less on football. They all learned throwing more balls doesn’t necessarily make a better quarterback.Matt Hasselbeck, a three-time Pro Bowler who backed up Favre and Luck during his 17-year career, became a believer. So after hearing a story about Manning meeting a former U.S. president one offseason, Hasselbeck accepted an offer from assistant coach Clyde Christensen to spend time with a Navy admiral.“He talked to us in our quarterback meeting one day about protecting the football because we’d had some issues and he used this analogy of what they tell Top Gun pilots,” Hasselbeck said. “It was basically that you have this great plane you get to fly and it does not belong to you. It belongs to the government, it belongs to the people. Clyde said we should take the admiral up on spending some time with him. So I did that one offseason.“That’s an example of something that’s not necessarily X’s and O’s but it’s a form of leadership training or just working on you and if you’re working on you, you’re improving everything about you.”It was a message Hasselbeck relayed to Luck after joining the Colts in 2013. But it was a hard sell to a young workout warrior with the pressure and expectations of a No. 1 draft pick.While Luck enjoyed vacationing in Europe Youth Le'Raven Clark Jersey , where he spent part of his childhood reading books, following soccer and riding bikes, the desire to improve drove him to work out.In time, Hasselbeck’s message sank in.“When we were first teammates, I told him there are going to be some years that are fun and they’re easy and you’re healthy the whole year,” said Hasselbeck, who now works for ESPN. “There’s going to be other years when it’s miserable and you’re dealing with something the whole year and you’re in the training room all the time. You’re there early and you’re there late and you’re in pain and you’re on drugs.“That conversation came up when I was talking about how long I wanted to play. This year we were talking and Andrew said ‘I remember you saying it and it didn’t make sense then.’ He said now it totally makes sense.”Luck’s good year came with 16 starts for the first time since 2014, producing career highs in completions, attempts and completion percentage. He finished second to Patrick Mahomes in touchdown passes, helped the Colts end a three-year playoff drought and found a better balance between life and football.Still, taking a break won’t be easy.“I don’t think he’s really going to get away,” longtime left tackle Anthony Castonzo said. “I think it’s so cool he’s not going to have to recover from an injury or have to get healthy first. He’ll probably try to get away, but he’s like me — after a short time you’ve got to find a gym or somewhere to work out because otherwise you feel like garbage.”The difference is the 20-month gap between regular-season games following surgery on a partially torn labrum and three successive injury-plagued offseasons have changed Luck’s perspective.He never missed a chance to explain how much fun he had last season and acknowledged things felt different after a season-ending loss to Kansas City.“In past seasons, there has been a massive emotional letdown — like now I can try to be a good boyfriend or now I can try to do this and that Le'Raven Clark Jersey Stitched ,” he said. “But it doesn’t seem that way this year. One of my challenges for myself was to maybe not silo everything in my life so much but be able to exist as a happy human throughout a season, not just after the season. So I don’t have this, I guess desire, to run away and hide for a couple weeks.”Instead, he threw for a week leading up to the Pro Bowl and attended the NFL’s honors banquet last week.Luck hasn’t said if he will work out again at Stanford, his alma mater, but acknowledged he’ll continue to work with Tom House, the former Major League Baseball pitcher who has helped him in the past. But the Colts remain convinced the best prescription for Luck is rest.“He’s got to be fired up right now to have a normal offseason,” coach Frank Reich said. “To get away and I know he’s Andrew — he’s still going to do his deal and be disciplined — but just relax. My encouragement to him would be, ‘You better do that, you better take advantage of it.'”Preseason Week 2 yields little for Colts fans in home loss to Ravens I’ve learned in my life that I’m not very good at sugarcoating things. Often, I find myself biting my tongue (or, deleting something I’ve typed out on any of a number of social media sites) and simply shaking my head in silence instead of wearing my emotions on my sleeve and potentially embarrassing myself or starting an argument with a stranger.Last night’s game was awful. There. I said it. However, it wasn’t without purpose Youth Jordan Wilkins Jersey , and we’ll get into that in a minute.It has become clear to me that just like other games I play, information is now king and neither team looked like it was trying to give anything away last night. For the record, the Ravens are not a very good football team and I don’t know if Lamar Jackson or even RGIII can save them, and we already knew that about Joe Flacco. I can say that with absolute certainty. Going into the game, the Colts sidelined something along the lines of 20 players, which I’m assuming leveled the playing field. Andrew Luck was without Anthony Costanzo (who I’m sure is still better at his job one-legged than Le’Raven Clark), T.Y. was in pads but didn’t play (at least he catches balls you throw him), and the only position group on offense I came away really excited about was the tight ends.On the other side of the ball, the defense forced a few three and outs early, caused turnovers and even the special teams play was above bar with the G.O.A.T. kicking a 57-yard field goal in the first half. Our boy Rigoberto Sanchez was apparently off his game, shanking a punt into the Colts sideline and although he did recover a fumble on a punt return that was caused by TE Ross Travis, his day was anything but great.All that said, I think what I came away with just about the same things to say as anyone else. Andrew Luck looked tight and less accurate than he did Week 1. The receivers on this team need to step up, because at this point Jordan Wilkins Jersey Stitched , it’s TY and then a whole bunch of guys with big question marks after you say their name. Ryan Grant? Chester Rogers?Without Mack, the Colts started with Christine Michael at running back (who Brett Mock says has no vision), then Jordan Wilkins came in and demonstrated that the running back doesn’t need to be flashy to be effective, and Nyheim Hines looks like he needs more practice. If I remember correctly, and yes it was against the second team Ravens defense, Wilkins went like 4 straight carries at about 7 yards a clip until Baltimore stuffed him on a play (in which he careened forward for about a 3-4 yard gain on what looked like a no gain), and then had a couple catches too. Again, the tight end group on this team is awesome. With Jack, Erik and Eric (Thing 1 & 2, I propose?) and even Ross Travis, there appears to be depth and a bevy of talent at the position, which will allegedly be highly important in the style of offense new head coach Frank Reich intends to employ come the regular season.On the defensive side of the ball, again the strength is at safety and along the defensive line. That said, several times last night I found myself praising cornerback Quincy Wilson for just “being there and trying to make a play in coverage”. DT Hassan Ridgeway is starting off hot (please stay healthy) Indianapolis Colts Abdurrahman Ya-Sin Jersey , John Simon’s switch to defensive end appears to be a fruitful endeavor, and personally, I really like Skai Moore and Darius Leonard at linebacker.Like Andrew Luck said, this team is really young and there will be some growing pains. Nights like last night show how important scheme and play-calling are. If you are running a base offense, the other team can game plan against that and shut down your offense. I prefer to reserve most of my analysis for regular season games (due to the nature of preseason games, a lot of the time we’re really only watching like 1 or 2 players on the field fight for a single roster spot).In closing, I wouldn’t recommend deeply analyzing the film on last night’s game, because after having practiced against this team all week, the only real positive appears to be a lack of a major injury, right? Everything else gets muddied because of how bad the game was on the whole. The officials got both leading with the head penalties wrong, even with the benefit of a replay. However, the reality is that this is the preseason for them as well, both calls will be reviewed by the league office and the officiating crew will be coached before the season starts.On to Week 3!