This item also appears in Albert Breer's Oct. 18 Transition Game notebook.
Hate to rain on everyone's "Suck for Luck" parade, but there is an under-the-radar storyline regarding the heralded Stanford quarterback that will soon be out there.
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Think all your team has to do is finish 1-15 to get Andrew Luck? It might not be that easy. The presence of Luck's father, Oliver, is something league executives will be watching closely as we get closer to April. This well could be Eli Manning in 2004, or John Elway in 1983, if the Luck camp doesn't like the situation the highest picking team presents.
"Absolutely. I've heard that for the last two years," said one college scout, who's on the road and paid to ferret this stuff out. "There's no question that it could be a Manning thing all over again."
The Manning comparison, of course, arises because Archie Manning drove the bus on youngest son Eli forcing a trade from San Diego to New York. And don't get this twisted -- this isn't a criticism of Luck or his father, who is also the athletics director at West Virginia. They have the leverage, the next 10-15 years of Luck's life could be in the balance, and so it makes sense to use that power to find the right spot.
It's just that, based on the way Oliver and Andrew Luck have carefully orchestrated their decisions in the past, teams are expecting this circumstance to arise if the wrong team is sitting at No. 1.
"We talked about this before (Luck's sophomore) season started," said the scout. "Some people know the dad well, and the hands-on approach he has. In Andrew's defense, he seems pretty in control of everything. So I could see it being a mutual decision. And if he can control it, why play behind a (crappy) offensive line, or in a bad situation? He's gonna have that control. If he doesn't like the team there, all he has to do is voice that, and there'll be teams looking to trade up.
"The Luck camp has a ton of firepower here. More than anyone I can remember."
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