Andrew Luck Is the Best NFL Prospect Ever

"Breathe in for Luck, breathe in so deep / the air is blessed / you share with me"—"Hands Down," Dashboard Confessional

Let's just get it over with and say it: Andrew Luck is the best draft prospect ever, in any sport. Hyperbole? Internet fodder? Gristle for the insatiable 24-hour sports-news cycle? Yes, yes and yes.

But you know what? Luck might be better than advertised, and come the NFL draft next May, fans in some NFL city will be reciting the chorus of the above song: "hands down, this is the best day that I ever remember."

The 6'4", 235-pound Luck is off-the-charts good in every measurable quality for a quarterback. He's big. He's fast. He has a strong arm, and he has an uncanny feel for the game.

So, every year there's a quarterback that can check off those traits, right?

Yes, but not to the degree that Luck can. And once you start gauging all the mental aspects that go into being an NFL quarterback, Luck starts taking on otherworldly expectations. 

Luck is an "A" student at Stanford, one of the best universities in the world, and he's hardly majoring in sports management or ballroom dancing—try Architectural Engineering. He was the co-valeditctorian of his high school class in Houston, and his father, Oliver, was an NFL quarterback and is now the Athletic Director at West Virginia.

Size, smarts, athletic ability and that understated swagger that you want your quarterback to have. He's not going to tell you that he's going to beat you, he's just going to beat you.

Luck has every single throw you'd ever need from a quarterback in his arsenal, including the power throws: the deep out, the accurate bomb, the missile underneath; as well as all the touch passes—the fade, the screens and the finesse throws between defenders. 

Match his deadly arm, superior intellect and athletic feet (he grew up playing soccer in England and Germany), and throw in his fierce determination and competitive drive, and you've got as close to a perfect quarterback prospect as anyone's ever seen.

For a passer as sublime as Luck is, he'll end his college career with his most famous play being a tackle. (Luck absolutely blew up USC safety Shareece Wright last season after Wright had picked up a Stanford fumble.)

Put it this way: when Luck is on Jon Gruden's ESPN show, "QB Camp," next spring, Gruden may end up balling like he's watching "Brian's Song."

The promise of Luck has led to fan bases in at least 10 NFL cities spending the 2011 season in cheering limbo; they want to win games, but they are just as tantalized by the hope of bringing Andrew Luck to town. "Suck For Luck" has become the rallying cry for teams who have already had their playoff hopes dashed for this season. 

The St. Louis Rams and the Carolina Panthers are two of the worst teams in the NFL who might not reach for Luck, as they both have their brand new franchise quarterbacks in place.

But in Miami, Arizona, Denver, Minnesota, Jacksonville and even Indianapolis (imagine the transition from one of the greatest ever to perhaps the greatest ever), NFL fans are tempering their awful seasons by holding out hope that "the next best thing ever" will head their way.

No NFL coach or GM would ever go on record and say they are hoping for a chance at Luck, but there has to be a certain amount of "dashboard confessionals" on the way home from the football complex during a sorry season—with a beacon of hope such as Luck possibly at the end of it. 

Is the hype too much? Of course it is. Luck will probably win the Heisman Trophy in December, and he most certainly would have been the No. 1 pick had he come out early for last year's draft.

But Luck grades out as high as you possibly can for every conceivable trait at the single toughest, most important position in sports, and with that comes an expectation level we've never seen before either.

Drafts in all sports have become 12-month-a-year enterprises with "expert" talking-heads and websites making livings on predicting the futures of 18- to 23-year-old athletes. Plugged into all the physical/psychological analysis machines these people use, Andrew Luck pops out as the best prospect anyone has ever seen.

Until the next one comes along.