Colts owner says Andrew Luck’s contract will be ‘shocking’

Andrew Luck. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File) Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck is about to start the final year of his rookie contract. And team owner Jim Irsay is going to throw some huge numbers at Luck to keep him in Colts blue.

Luck will be playing 2016 under a $16.1 million one-year extension of his original rookie deal. Once that ends, the check-writing begins.

“It’s going to be a big number,” Colts owner Jim Irsay told WISH-TV. “It’s going to be a shocking number, nine figures and probably a $20 million starting point per year, but again we will find the right number to get to.”

Football players get paid a pittance of what players in other sports do; $20 million per might get you a backup second baseman in baseball, for instance. (Nitpickers: that’s hyperbole.) What’s the market value for a guy like Luck? Well, fellow 2012 rookie Russell Wilson got a deal with a $31 million signing bonus and a $21.7 million average annual value, and took his team to two Super Bowls. NFL MVP and Super Bowl QB Cam Newton’s five-year deal has a $20.76 AAV, with $67.6 million paid in the first three years of a five-year, $103.8 million deal.

The big sticking point with a major quarterback is how to put a team around him if he’s devouring a significant chunk of the team’s available salary. “The question again remains how can you build that roster around him,” Irsay said. “You see franchise quarterbacks through the years, be unselfish and make sure they realize if I eat up ‘X’ amount of this cap, how are we going to put together a championship football team?”

Free agency begins March 9, and Luck’s contract will be fascinating to follow.

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