Filed to ESPN: Andrew Luck has informed the Colts he is retiring from the NFL, per source. There will be a press conference Sunday to make it official, but Luck is mentally worn down, and now checking out.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) August 25, 2019

When I saw this tweet Saturday night, I checked it five times to make sure it wasn’t from Adarn Schefter. I was just as shocked as everyone else when I saw the news. I knew Andrew Luck had battled injuries for most of his professional career, but he was coming off one of his best seasons as a pro. After missing all of 2017, Luck threw for 39 touchdowns and almost 4600 yards in 2018. But now that I’ve had a day to process the news, here are a few of my thoughts on the matter.

• Anyone who questions why Luck is retiring instead of trying to battle through his injuries is a jackass. Here’s just the most blatant example of jackassery:
  

  Retiring cause rehabbing is “too hard” is the most millennial thing ever #AndrewLuck

  — Doug Gottlieb (@GottliebShow) August 25, 2019

  That lazy millennial jab won’t go over too well with most of the people on this site either.
  
  Andrew Luck should not sacrifice one bit of his post-football quality of life for our entertainment. The people out there who think he owes it to the fans or his teammates to take a beating again this year should tell us how much fun they have at work the next time their job makes them piss blood.

• There seems to be a stark difference between the reaction to Luck’s retirement and the reaction to Rob Gronkowski’s retirement, and I’m not sure why. Both guys decided to hang ’em up at age 29 to avoid further wear and tear on their bodies. A lot of the scorn directed at Luck is likely due to the sheer surprise of his announcement. With three Super Bowl rings, fans probably believe Gronk had less left to prove. Still, Luck doesn’t doesn’t deserve any of the grief he is getting. No one should question either player’s decision to retire, but especially not people who didn’t question Gronk’s decision.

• Again, Luck doesn’t deserve any of the grief he is getting but I can’t get too mad at fans booing. Luck said hearing the boos hurt and I believe him, but as Reggie Jackson once said, fans don’t boo nobodies. The fans that booed had to sit through a full preseason football game and likely hadn’t heard most of the details yet. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. Unless fans are booing a player getting carted off with an ACL injury, I try not to get too worked up over the appropriateness of booing.

• Hindsight is 20/20, but do you think anyone in the Colts organization today regrets moving on from Peyton Manning when they did? Should they? Luck was supposed to be the future, the guy who would run the show for the next 13 years. Instead, they only got seven years and six seasons out of him. Peyton played four seasons in Denver, three at a very high level (including the best season of his career in 2013 at age 37), took the Broncos to two Super Bowls, and won them a Super Bowl in his final season at age 39. Imagine if the Patriots had decided to move on from Tom Brady after the season he missed due to injury. That of course seems laughable. Will people look back on the Colts decision to move on from the second-greatest quarterback of all time and find it almost as laughable?

Whatever’s next for you, Andrew…