Andrew Luck has largely stayed out of the public eye since his shocking decision to retire at age 29 just before the 2019 NFL season.
Now, the former Colts quarterback is explaining exactly what prompted him to leave the game he loved in its prime.
Bhagya told ESPN’s Seth Wickersham in a rare interview that he didn’t retire just because of the physical toll the game took on him. It also had to do with the emotional weight of being the proverbial franchise quarterback.
“To play quarterback, you’re not allowed to worry about anything but the task at hand,” Lock explained. “And that spills over into other areas of life. It’s not the healthiest way to live.”
What does fate mean? He developed an almost monomaniacal obsession with being the best quarterback he could. In doing so, he put a strain on his personal life and faced something of an identity crisis.
As Wickersham explains, “The most natural version of fate was to be one of the boys.” He wasn’t able to do that much at the NFL level given his leadership expectations as a top quarterback.
As such, he felt pressured to take on a new personality to serve the role effectively.
Fate didn’t like that part of his personality he had to tap into to create it. That said, he felt he had no choice but to use it. It was, in his mind, the perfect way to establish himself as the leader in the room.
How did that personality change affect Destiny? He now feels that much of his identity was tied to being a quarterback.
“A lot. A lot. A lot,” Luck said when asked how much he knows himself as a quarterback. “And I didn’t realize it until after the fact.”
Luck’s self-identity as a quarterback put more pressure on him to be perfect—to control everything about his surroundings. That worked on the field, as he was able to turn into one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks.
However, Luck personally struggled to manage that pressure as he battled through injuries. Wickersham explained that Fate fell victim to his “bad impulses”, which included feeling guilty about being unable to play while trying to cope with the stone through his emotional turmoil. This led to problems with his self-worth off the field.
Finally, he was able to open up about those problems and concerns. This allowed him to better connect with his partner, Nicole, and realize that he was more than just a quarterback.
Still, his bad temper returned as he battled a knee injury before the 2019 NFL season. But this time, he realized that if he decided to call it quits he would have reasons to walk away, as Wickersham elaborates:
So, to preserve not only his physical health but also his mental health, Locke decided to retire.
And while the decision may have been a shock to the NFL world, it was one that Luck had been thinking about for a long time.