Sunday was more than just another game for Colts quarterback Andrew Luck.
It had been 616 days since he last played in the regular season and Luck said that he was feeling emotional about running through the tunnel to the field to face the Bengals.
“Overwhelming, I felt grateful and appreciative to be here,” Luck said, via ESPN.com. “I was so excited to get to run on the field as a Colt and get to play with T.Y. [Hilton] and Jack [Doyle] and [Adam Vinatieri] and the new guys. It was fun. Then the game got going, and then it’s one play at a time.”
The first passing play didn’t go well as Luck was intercepted, but he’d go 39-of-52 for 319 yards and two touchdowns from there. It wasn’t enough to get the Colts a win as their comeback effort failed when the Bengals returned a Doyle fumble for a touchdown in the final minute of their 34-23 victory, but it would be hard for the Colts not to feel positive about what they saw from their quarterback for most of the afternoon.