Iowa football: With Andrew Luck retired, Colts should look at Nate Stanley

Indianapolis Colt’s star quarterback Andrew Luck abruptly retired Saturday. Here’s why the team should be looking at Iowa football QB Nate Stanley now.

What an absurd thought considering there is an entire NFL season and college football season to be played, but the idea that Indianapolis should take a long hard look at Iowa football player Nate Stanley does have merit, in my opinion, especially with Andrew Luck now gone.

Since joining the Colts as the General Manager, Chris Ballard has been restocking the cupboard in Indianapolis, and he’s done a heck of a job. In fact, until last night, Indy was a dark-horse Super Bowl team.

Now, they might be lucky to make the playoffs.

With Luck retired, it’s officially the Jacoby Brissett era in Indy, and it remains to be seen just how good of a player he can actually be as he steps into the full-time starters role for the first time in his NFL career.

Regardless of how he performs though, you better believe Indy’s scouting department has just significantly increased time and money budgeted to scouting quarterbacks, and one quarterback they should take a look at is the Iowa football program’s very own Nate Stanley.

Before you think that’s ridiculous, hear me out.

Indianapolis likely isn’t going to finish with a top-10 pick. Luck might not be there but this team still has a lot of talent from a team that finished 10-6 last season (after starting 1-5). With the quarterback class expected to be pretty talented next year, we could see a lot of maneuvering around in the draft as teams position themselves to select the next best thing at quarterback. But, if Jacoby Brissett performs well and the Colts go 8-8 or 9-7 next year, they’re going to be just out of reach of one of the top tier quarterbacks without a significant trade up.

8-8 doesn’t mean Brissett should be the unquestioned starter going forward, but maybe Indy should go the route of getting him reinforcements in the first round and look at quarterback in the second, which is how Stanley falls into this.

He has great size and a strong arm, and if he has a good season, he could bump his draft stock into the low first round, early second-round area. Even if accuracy issues continue to plague him a bit, a second-round quarterback isn’t expected to be ready right away.

For the Colts, this presents a great opportunity to develop a quarterback under the tutelage of QB guru Frank Reich while trying to win now with the current roster and Jacoby Brissett.

Moreover, Stanley has a tiny (maybe a bit of a stretch) connection to Andrew Luck. Coming out of college, Luck was looked at as the best quarterback prospect since Peyton Manning. And recently Stanley was receiving high praise from the future Hall of Fame quarterback about his work ethic and dropbacks. Say what you want about Stanley, but he is running a pro-style offense as Stanford did for Andrew Luck and has a lot more responsibility at the line of scrimmage than most college quarterbacks do.

For Stanley, this could be the perfect landing place. He would be able to develop further without the pressure of having to start right away, and Indianapolis is about as midwest of a city as you can get outside Green Bay.