Andrew Luck the next Manning? That’s up to the beholder
I’m comfortable enough with my sexuality to say whether another man looks good. And in covering sports, I see good looking people in-person and on my television screen all the time. The NFL hides all of their players’ faces, but in commercials and in-person, the good-lookers make themselves apparent.
Adrian Peterson, Mark Sanchez, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Tony Romo, Cam Newton, Calvin Johnson and Braylon Edwards are among some of the more symmetrical faces in the NFL.
What you may notice is that some of the best players in the league are also really good looking people. Take for example, Brady, Peterson and Calvin Johnson—all are arguably the best at their respective positions, and all of them are good-looking men.
While some of their handsome qualities are the results of being in-shape, testosterone-filled men in their mid-20’s, the names I mentioned also have the key aesthetic that has been scientifically proven to be a prominent factor in assessing one’s attractiveness: facial symmetry.
So if some of the best players in the NFL are also some of the most handsome players in the NFL, is it fair to correlate attractiveness with athletic prowess in the league?
Maybe.
This brings me to Andrew Luck. Luck has been figuratively deemed the best thing since sliced bread, and literally labeled the best quarterback prospect since Peyton Manning. But can he actually be all that great at quarterback without having the looks of an Adonis?
While Manning may not be considered a Tom Brady in the looks department, he still scores a 96 or better in facial symmetry, which is significantly higher than the average person. Luck, on the other hand, didn’t score so well on any online tests that I conducted. His scores were all in the 80’s, depending on the image I used (I used four in total).
Scientifically speaking, since I’m using two different tools to produce scores for Manning and Luck, this probably is not exactly a fair comparison. However, being that I am that confident in my sexuality, I don’t mind saying that Luck isn’t as pleasing to the eye as Peyton Manning. Come on now; you know you agree with me!
I present most of these measurements and assertions about players’ looks in jest, but seriously speaking, who is to say that good looks don’t affect a player’s ability to succeed at the quarterback position? They affect just about every other aspect of human life. So does it really stop when you get between the lines of sports?
It should. After all, sports are supposed to be the ultimate meritocracy. But even in the NFL, money, ratings, money, egos and money get in the way. And maybe there is a chance that Luck’s looks, or lack thereof, will affect how he plays, or is interpreted of playing, on Sundays in the NFL.
It sounds crazy, I know, but it’s not entirely impossible. When you think of the most successful quarterbacks of all-time, who do you think of? You go right to Tom Brady, Joe Montana, Brett Favre, Dan Marino, John Elway, Joe Namath, Peyton Manning and Troy Aikman. All good looking dudes. And while it seems ridiculous to say the reason they were successful is because they look good, don’t you get the sense that there are just some guys out there who have it all? There are just beautiful people out there who get the brains, beauty and talent, and it shows in their work each and every day. In fact, it has been scientifically proven that “beautiful people” earn considerably more money than “non-beautiful” people.
Now, I know what you’re saying, for every good-looking Tom Brady out there that has three Super Bowl rings, there’s a Matt Leinart who can’t play dead—and I see your point. However, the same study that shows beautiful people earn more than non-beautiful people also stated that beautiful people are more likely to receive backlash in the workplace the second they appear not to be pulling their weight. Essentially, people with good-looks have certain expectations, both good and bad, and when their performance falls into the bad category, their good-looks start to count against them.
Again, it’s almost crazy for me to take the average working experience and bring it to the NFL, but for as much as we would like to say that success is determined Sundays on the football field, when you take into account draft position, leadership, money, likeability and character, there’s a lot of non-football stuff that goes into determining who gets a fair shot at succeeding and who doesn’t. Just about any football player will tell you that there are plenty of players out there not getting the chance they deserve.
But look, I’m the first person to tell you I don’t like discussing intangibles and love stats, so I’m saying most of this tongue-in-cheek. So I’m not suggesting that Luck is doomed because he doesn’t look good. Hell, there are plenty of Ugly Betty’s in football.
Nonetheless, based on a study done a couple of years ago, I’m not sure that any of the “non-beautiful” signal-callers start at quarterback, but that may or may not be a coincidence. Then again, before we go around saying that Luck has exhibited everything we have seen from the great quarterbacks, there is one thing missing. Is that one thing important? I don’t know, but I think we are going to find out in the years to come.
