Campaign 2012

Andrew Luck, Quarterback, Standford

In 2012, there will be two major choices that need to be made in the United States. Obviously, the 2012 Presidential Election, and then the most important selection, The NFL Draft, Andrew Luck sweepstakes. This football season so far has been full of signs in the crowd and commentators all shouting the same slogan for their respective teams, "Suck for Luck". Andrew Luck has been signaled by many as one of the most well rounded quarterbacks to enter the NFL Draft but the main question is going to be, Where will he play?

This 2011 NFL season has been interesting to say the least. Through 7 weeks, we have one undefeated and major standout team in the Green Bay Packers. We have some elite teams like the Saints, Patriots, and Ravens. We have teams that we don't know what to make of them, such as the Lions (5-2; 2 losses in consecutive weeks), Cowboys (Romo-Problems), Jets (0-3 on the road), and the Texans (who can just never seem to figure it out in consecutive weeks). Then we have teams like the Rams, Dolphins, and Colts, who are just terrible. These are the teams we will go through for the Andrew Luck sweepstakes.

Rams (0-6; NFC West) Last year finished 7-9, and just missed the playoffs. The 2010 #1 overall pick Sam Bradford has been a fairly decent quarterback in his first year and a half in the league. He has been dubbed the "Franchise Quarterback", so you cannot imagine the Rams holding onto the #1 pick in this draft and selecting Andrew Luck. You don't want to pick someone else at #1 (barring injury to Luck) and let him fall into the lap of the next team. You would assume they would trade the pick away. A team like the Dolphins, Broncos (Tebow-factor could knock them out of the picture), or Chiefs, could all use someone of Lucks caliber.

Dolphins (0-6; AFC East) Last year finished 7-9, this year the only thing they are playing for is Andrew Luck. The Dolphins are in absolute shambles. They were talked about in the offseason as possibly having a top tier defense. After 7 weeks, they have the 21st ranked pass defense, and 20th ranked run defense. Top-tier? No. The Tony Sparano saga is very clearly coming to a close, and the season of Chad Henne came crashing down two weeks ago. Miami seems like it may be a the leader in the Andrew Luck sweepstakes through 7 weeks.

Colts (0-7; AFC South) Last year finished 10-6 and lost in the first round of the playoffs. I said the Dolphins may be the leader in the sweepstakes, but then again, the Colts are awful. This year, the only reason the city Indianapolis is coming up in postseason talks is because it is the site of this years Super Bowl. Obviously, this year's stats for the Colts are out of whack because of the injury to Peyton Manning, but still, the show goes on. The Colts rank 27th in passing yards, and 25th in rushing yards. I should also mention the Colts just lost to the Saints 62-7, this past Sunday night. Luck to the Colts could be a great thing, both for the Colts and for Luck. Who knows how much longer Manning will hold the reigns in Indy. Look at Aaron Rodgers, arguably the best quarterback in the game right now, he sat behind Brett Favre and learned from the legend for years. What better way for Luck to adapt to the NFL by learning from a quarterback that will go down in history as one of the best of all-time.

The rest of this 2011 season should be fairly exciting. Even if there are not too many stellar teams this year, there are plenty of bad ones that should make the race for Andrew Luck exciting all the way down to the finish.

--Nick