There's reason to believe Andrew Luck was never fully healthy at any point in a disappointing 2015 season.
He missed two early-season games with an injury to his throwing shoulder, played through torn cartilage in two of his ribs and went down with a lacerated kidney at midseason.
Going all the way back to the season opener we saw a quarterback with waning arm strength and shaky pocket presence, suggesting Luck was hiding an injury he never revealed.
"Personally, I know I wasn't playing well, whether I was injured or not," Luck recently acknowledged to the Indianapolis Star. "I have some thoughts, but I don't want to share them. I wasn't doing a good job and it's no one else's fault but mine."
As banged up as Luck was throughout last season, it's fair to wonder if he's back to 100 percent entering Indianapolis Colts camp this week.
"I feel great, I feel as good as I've ever felt going into a training camp," Luck told NFL Media's Stacey Dales. "Strength staff, conditioning staff and trainers, we've put a lot of work in this offseason and ... that's helped me and all the guys a lot, feel great, can't wait to go."
Now that Luck is fully healthy, the pressure is on the overhauled offensive line to keep him upright after watching him take more hits than any NFL quarterback over the past three seasons.
"It falls on us," left tackle Anthony Castonzo conceded, via Dales on Tuesday's edition of Inside Training Camp Live. "We want our quarterback to be able to sit back in the pocket and smoke a cigarette."
As underwhelming as last season was, the Colts understand they are no longer consensus favorites in a rising AFC South.
"We have an edge about us," Luck told Dales.
That jibes with owner Jim Irsay's assessment of his quarterback this summer.
"I've never seen him more motivated," Irsay recently said. "That fire is in his eye in a special way."
