Andrew Luck: Dark-horse Candidate for Comeback Player of the Year?

After a shoulder injury cost him playing through to the end of the 2016 season, expectations were high that Andrew Luck would return to Indianapolis at full strength for the 2017 season.

He didn’t.

The franchise quarterback missed the preseason, Week 1 and was eventually sidelined for the entire season during a campaign that saw the Colts limp to a 4-12 record without him.

Now, fully healthy and ready to return after going 19 months without throwing a pass in an NFL game, the 28-year-old Colt is a dark-horse candidate for Comeback Player of the Year.

At training camp practices, Luck has been sharp, tossing long balls to wideout T.Y. Hilton down the sidelines, handing the ball off cleanly, and commanding the huddle like he never left it.

Luck, who at one point thought he might not make it back to the league, has looked so good that his head coach Frank Reich thinks he is “going to go beyond anything he’s done, I really do.”

That optimism has Albert Breer of SI theorizing Luck – along with injured stars like Aaron Rodgers, J.J. Watt DeShaun Watson, and Dalvin Cook – could be a candidate for Comeback Player of the Year.