Andrew Luck Makes a Very Interesting Decision

Andrew Luck has announced that he will return to Stanford for his senior season. Luck was the consensus No. 1 pick for the 2011 NFL Draft. And I’d go one step further. I’ve been following the NFL Draft with some level of closeness since 2002, and from 2002-2010, my feeling was that Carson Palmer was the best QB prospect drafted during that time.

I'm not saying that Palmer’s the best QB now, but that he was the best coming out of college. Luck would’ve passed Palmer and by a decent margin. In fact, I’ve seen more than a few draft analysts say that Luck is the best QB prospect since Peyton Manning.

As shocking as I found this information, it isn’t without precedent; Jake Locker, Matt Leinart, Sam Bradford and the aforementioned Peyton Manning were all players who were regarded by most as the No. 1 pick in the draft as juniors but chose to return to school for their senior seasons.

The results of those four are mixed. Manning and Bradford did wind up being No. 1 picks, but neither was able to win the Heisman Trophy or get to the national championship as a senior, and Bradford was injured virtually the entire season.

Locker will likely not be the top pick in the 2011 draft; he was able to lead Washington to a bowl game victory and will still likely be a top 10 to 15 draft pick. So other than the lost money, he probably doesn’t have a lot of regrets about his decision.

Leinart is the true cautionary tale. The fact that he dropped from No. 1 to No. 10 and the lost money that comes with it is the relatively minor issue. He’s had a completely irrelevant NFL career, and there’s no reason to believe he will ever be anything more than a backup NFL quarterback.

But there’s no reason to believe that had Leinart come out in the 2005 NFL Draft and been chosen No. 1 overall by San Francisco, that his career would’ve been any better, although he would have a lot more money.

It’s always difficult to criticize a guy for choosing to go back to school, and I won’t do that. I will say that I definitely would not have made the same decision Luck did and the costs far outweigh the benefits.

Like about 99 percent of the population, if I were guaranteed $50 million, I would leave school as soon as possible and jump at that opportunity. There are definite benefits to Luck’s decision, as he clearly enjoys Palo Alto and the college life.

Also, despite coach Jim Harbaugh’s likely departure even with Luck returning, it likely won’t hurt Stanford too much in the short term, and the Cardinal will be a possible preseason Top Five team, so a national championship is certainly not out of the realm of possibility.

Beyond that, though, he’s probably going to lose a lot of money even if he is the first pick in the 2012 NFL Draft, because the NFL will likely go to an NBA-style rookie salary scale and the salaries of top draft picks will not be nearly as high.

And there’s the possibility of him suffering an injury which, depending on how serious, could be just a relative speed bump or could be catastrophic. But the main reason is that his stock can’t possibly increase.

He was the consensus No. 1 pick six months before the NFL Draft; he was called by some a "can’t-miss prospect" and the "best QB prospect since Peyton Manning." There’s no upward mobility from that position. The best he can possibly hope for is to maintain his current status.