RGIII vs. Andrew Luck: Why Andrew Luck Will Have Better Long-Term Success

Now that it is official that former Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck and Baylor's Robert Griffin III are the first two overall picks of the draft, they will be compared for the rest of their careers. Luck is widely considered the better prospect and least likely to become a bust, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's what will happen.

New Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III may end up being the top quarterback despite not going first overall. He has exceptional arm talent that allows him to deliver breathtaking passes in both the intermediate and deep depths of the field.

What will be key for the two quarterbacks is how their coaches build around their strengths while avoiding their weaknesses. In Indianapolis, Andrew Luck is the beneficiary of working with new offensive coordinator Bruce Arians. 

Arians was in Pittsburgh from 2007 to 2011 and although he received criticism from the Steelers faithful, he did a good job of creating a relationship with Ben Roethlisberger as he developed and put him in the right situations to ensure his success.

Arians was adept at making adjustments to his game plans on a week-to-week basis, as he would go from running the outside zone run concept with tailback Rashard Mendenhall a dozen times to keep Roethlisberger from throwing the game away with a costly turnover to eventually running spread principles (as well as triple-option!) with multiple receiver sets.

In Griffin III's case, he comes to an offense that relies heavily on the running game and utilizes the deep ball off of play-action. It is primarily a zone-blocking scheme that relies on the inside and outside zone concepts, which stretches the defense sideline to sideline.

The running game will benefit from Griffin III's mobility as they will be able to stretch the mesh-point (point of handoff) even further, which will put the defenders in a conundrum as they attempt to read their keys.

In the passing game, Mike and Kyle Shanahan utilize a lot of stacked sets, which is where two receivers are lined up one behind the other, and several hi-lo concepts that stretch the field horizontally and put two receivers running the same routes at different depths in one area.

Although both will be a fit for their new teams' schemes, it all comes down to talent, because talent wins games and at the end of the day, it's hard to pick against Andrew Luck.

It may seem like an easy way out to select Andrew Luck as the most likely to succeed, but I truly believe it because of three reasons that are crucial to quarterbacking in the NFL: accuracy, pocket presence and attention to detail.

Accuracy

I'm a big believer in sticking by the tape regardless of postseason workouts, because what matters most is how a player performs when the bullets are flying. Along with the aforementioned pocket presence and attention to detail, Andrew Luck's accuracy is superior to Robert Griffin III's. 

Admittedly, he may not be as accurate as Griffin III on the deep ball, but I'll take Andrew Luck's short and intermediate accuracy over the Baylor Bears quarterback. That's no disrespect to Griffin III, but Luck is superior and it's particularly noticeable in a few areas.

The first area is throws to outside breaking routes. Luck does a good job of driving the ball with velocity consistently as well as having proper ball placement. He often throws it outside where only his receiver can get it, as opposed to Griffin III who has a tendency to throw it to the inside where it gives the defender a chance to make a play.

Secondly, the touch passes that are required of all NFL quarterbacks, typically in the seam (between the hashes), is better done by Luck. Griffin III has made these throws in the past, as can be seen against Texas A&M, but again, Luck is better, in my opinion. He does a good job of dropping the ball in over defenders and allowing his pass-catcher to catch it in stride.

Last, the offense that Luck came out of required a lot horizontal throws from him that attacked defenses by stretching them wide in the intermediate depth of the field. This was commonly seen in head coach David Shaw's offense, as they threw a significant amount of Hi-Lo concepts that have been associated with West Coast offenses. 

Pocket Presence

I'm a big believer that pocket presence is an inherent trait that quarterbacks can't simply work on and improve significantly. They can improve, as witnessed by Griffin III's final season season, on a week-to-week basis in getting the ball out quicker. 

However, despite the improvement, he's not better than Luck in this case. Luck does a great job of getting the ball out just in time and focusing on his job despite the pressure that surrounds him. An instance of this was on a screen pass on 2nd-and-6 with just under a minute left in the Fiesta Bowl game against Oklahoma State.

Luck dropped back and went through his reads from left to right before finally finding his outlet receiver, the back. Seems like an ordinary check-down, right?

Not so.

Luck held the ball until the last second despite receiving pressure from all sides and got rid of it just in time, despite taking contact, and saved the play from going dead. It showed that he had an internal clock that got louder and louder as the defenders closed in, "beep, beep, beep."

He got rid of it right before the buzzer.  

Attention to Detail

The last example of Luck's pocket presence could have been grouped in this category, too, as he knew where his outlet was in a situation where he had the ideal down and distance and could not take a sack because of the clock running down.

Moreover, whether it's pump faking with the shoulders to protect the football in the process, tucking his backside arm in on a boot action fake so the end can't get a read of the play or making a sight adjustment on the fly that gets him in tune with his target, Andrew Luck's attention to detail is illustrated within every snap of the football. 

He is a cerebral quarterback who can play the mind games with the quarterbacks of the defenses and make an adjustment while still debating which chess piece he should move. 

Overall

When debating the question of who is more likely to have the better long-term success between the two highly acclaimed quarterbacks, I debated for hours. It's not as simple of an answer as it may initially seem, because Baylor's Robert Griffin III is the second overall pick for a reason. 

He is an exceptional talent who can make any and every throw with very good accuracy and velocity. He is also a dual-threat QB who can make defenses pay when they are in man coverage while also doing damage against zone coverage shells. 

However, as I listed the strengths of each quarterback, I went back to the tape to identify some crucial aspects of both players' games that I felt were hard to coach, and Luck was superior in the three categories of accuracy, pocket presence and attention to detail.