Zach Bolinger | Getty Images
INDIANAPOLIS – Perhaps more so than any other player inside of the Colts locker room, Clayton Geathers can relate to Andrew Luck.
There’s a reason Geathers was the lone defensive player that Luck singled out during his retirement press conference over the weekend.
“Love watching Clayton Geathers run around and play football,” Luck said over the weekend.
And what Luck especially admires about Geathers is what the safety has gone through to try and play the game of football.
Unfortunately, Geathers is a mainstay in the training room, often missing large chunks of practice time, as he tries to get as close to 100 percent as possible every Sunday.
Injuries have sidelined Geathers for 22 games over the last three seasons.
The 27-year-old safety knows the mental pain that comes from taxing physical ailments that take hours and hours to rehab.
“You get in that sunken place and it’s hard,” Geathers says. “Dealing with injuries, it’s tough. I just hope the fans realize this is a huge deal, not just physically, but mentally.
“It’s a struggle. I think (Luck) said it. It’s tough being in that cycle. That’s tough.”
The common theme from Luck’s teammates was shock and disbelief upon hearing the decision that came on Saturday night.
Players thought fans were lying to them when they began shouting the news down to them in the 4th quarter.
“Not a chance,” is what Jacoby Brissett said if he ever thought retirement would occur for Luck this year.
Anthony Castonzo, who along with Brissett, was one of the teammates Luck told before Saturday. Castonzo, the locker mate of Luck was stunned by the news, even though he saw the struggle his friend was going through during the recent rehab.
“He really didn’t have an offseason,” Castonzo says of Luck. “He was working since the end of the season to try and get better. You see him just working, working, working, kind of digging his heels into the ground and nothing really moving, nothing getting better. Before we had that conversation, did I think he was going to (retire)? No. But I did see him getting really frustrated.”
As former teammates of Luck spoke earlier this week, you couldn’t help but wonder if there were guys who wished they had the financial security/comfort to move on like Luck did.
Geathers wasn’t looking at it like that.
“I respect his decision, 100 percent,” the safety repeated. “We all know who he is. That was courage what he did. I respect him and I support him 100 percent.
“Right now, I’m just trying to use how courageous he was to push me.”
