Colts' No. 1 Offseason Priority Is Locking Up Andrew Luck to Long-Term Deal

There are few win-win scenarios when it comes time to play the NFL's "Game of Contracts." Most every contract must be carefully crafted to allow maximum salary-cap space and also take into account the odds that this player will still be a functional player years from now.

This creates a lot of hesitation for NFL general managers when it comes time to hand out the nine-figure extensions.

With the Indianapolis Colts and quarterback Andrew Luck, the risk is as low as it could possibly be, while the reward of tying the knot long-term now are extremely high.

Extending Luck is almost as much of a no-brainer for the Colts as drafting him was in the first place. So it comes as no surprise that ESPN's Adam Schefter reported the Colts had already begun talks to lock Luck up:

It's hard to read the words "richest deal in the NFL" and not think about overpayment, but the Colts are in a situation where it's almost impossible to overpay.

Beneficial for Colts to Act Now

The Colts are in a favorable bargaining position with their young quarterback. Luck is only under contract for the 2015 season at the moment, but the Colts hold a no-brainer fifth-year option that they can exercise before the year.

They also have two franchise tags to slap on Luck should negotiations somehow go completely sour.

Year	Base Salary	Bonus	Cap Number
2015	$3.4 million	$3.6 million	$7.03 million
2016	Fifth-Year Option
2017	Franchise Tag
2018	Franchise Tag

Not only does this help the Colts control costs on a potential new extension, it also lets them spread out a potential signing bonus over a longer term. That means lower cap hits down the line, which then means more space to sign other free agents.

Not that the Colts needed any incentive to lock up the highest-regarded young quarterback in the NFL, but the longer they wait, the less leverage they have.

The Cap Will Only Continue to Climb

League sources told Schefter (h/t ESPN.com) that not only will the salary cap continue to climb, it may climb exponentially over the next few years:

"

The 2014 NFL salary cap was set Friday at $133 million, up from $123 million last season, and league sources told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter it could break $150 million by 2016.

The 2014 number is the highest cap in league history, surpassing $127.997 million in 2009.

And cap numbers are expected to continue to climb, surpassing $140 million next year before another significant rise in 2016, sources said.

"

The NFL actually follows a very predictable pattern of player wealth distribution throughout their league.

Houston Texans general manager Rick Smith "stole it" from General Electric CEO Jack Welch, but the more common name for it these days is the Pareto Principle. Roughly put, 20 percent of your inputs cause 80 percent of your outputs.

Translate this to NFL business, and it becomes, 20 percent of your players cause 80 percent of your success.

The market price for said players, which would include Luck, is only going to continue to climb. The earlier the Colts can lock up Luck, the lower the market price will be and the more benefit they'll see down the line.

Luck Is a Worthy MVP Candidate This Season

Based purely on advanced statistics, you can look at Luck's career and question his true value to the Colts. After all, how can you look at a quarterback who has topped out at 12th in DVOA and say that's worth the largest contract in the NFL?

Year	DYAR (Rk)	DVOA (Rk)	QBR (Rk)
2012	257 (19)	-5.1% (19)	65.0 (11)
2013	650 (14)	4.6% (16)	62.0 (8)
2014	885 (10)	9.3% (12)	63.8 (13)

I am a big fan of advanced stats, but part of coming from that background is knowing their limitations.

Luck hasn't exactly had zero help, but he's had to fight through a ton of problematic roster construction as general manager Ryan Grigson tries to bring the roster up to championship contender code.

Every season has involved Luck masking weaknesses that were either self-inflicted or forced on the Colts from where he started in 2013.

For every T.Y. Hilton, there's been a Trent Richardson. Luck once threw 125 passes in Donnie Avery's direction in a single season. Mike McGlynn and Samson Satele have been on his offensive line for most of his career.

That's not to say that Luck has played flawlessly. He can get reckless at times and turns the ball over plenty. But part of the exercise of scouting is projection, and nobody in the NFL projects to do what Luck can outside of perhaps Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson.

While he would never come up in traditional evaluations of the award which reward wins and established quarterback statistics, Luck is a worthy MVP candidate this season. Khaled Elsayed of Pro Football Focus (h/t Peter King of The MMQB) voted him for the award in Peter King's compilation of MVP votes.

Certainly, when you look at what Luck did with one great wide receiver and a bunch of inconsistency, it's hard to argue against the notion that he took this offense much further than it should have gone.

Signing Luck Sets Up Colts' Financial Future

There's the no-brainer decision, and then there are the complicated ones.

Luck is only one member of the 2012 draft class up to be extended this offseason, and while the Colts have extra leverage on him because of the fifth-year option, they don't have the same luxury on the rest of that class, who all enter their walk years.

Hilton is the most important one, but Grigson will also have to decide on new deals for tight ends Dwayne Allen and Coby Fleener.

After seeing the fifth-year option on tackle Anthony Castonzo turn out really well in 2014, they have Castonzo entering his walk year as well.

Luck needs to be the first domino to fall here not only because of the leverage, but because the Colts need to know exactly what the scenario will be when it comes to their more complicated decisions.

I think Hilton is a bit of a no-brainer in his own right, but the other three could come down to the cost of keeping them versus the current cap versus potential free-agent upgrades. It's hard to play that calculus out without certainty on the constant.

Bleacher Report's Mike Tanier provided the Aaron Rodgers contract as a template for a reason: Luck is going to overtake him.

But that doesn't mean it's going to money poorly spent. It will probably raise the Internet snark for every turnover, but paying Luck his market value is a no-brainer because of the circumstances.

I don't know that the $25 million a year that Schefter leaked is going to happen. We often see franchise quarterbacks take a little less than their market value to set up better teams around them, and even Rodgers' deal only reached $20 million a season.

But I could easily see the Colts setting up something with a lot of guaranteed money for an asset they obviously want to stick around.

Once that's done, then the real offseason can start for the Colts: actually building the right team around Luck.

All DVOA numbers cited are courtesy of Football Outsiders. Learn more about DVOA here.

 

Rivers McCown is the AFC South lead writer for Bleacher Report and the co-host of the Three-Cone Drill podcast. His work has also appeared on Football Outsiders and ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter at @riversmccown.