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A superb workout for Andrew Luck at Stanford’s pro day this afternoon won’t change much.

Neither will falling flat on his face.

And falling flat on your face while throwing against no rush and no coverage is pretty difficult for a polished college quarterback.

Luck goes into the day as the presumed No. 1 pick by the Indianapolis Colts, and -- anticlimactic though it may be -- he’ll go out of the day the same.

You can watch the workout on ESPN3 at 2 p.m. ET today.

“I would think it’s a mere formality,” one scout told me. “I didn’t write him up or study him, but just from crossover tape, you say, 'Oh my God.' He can do a lot of things. He can move. He can throw. He’s smart. He’s in a pro-style offense, so there won’t be a big learning curve …”

“He would have to have a catastrophic workout for him not to be the guy, in my opinion," said a second scout. “The one thing he has to do at his workout in the Colts' eyes is to come out healthy. That is it. He is easy to scout. He is ready to play now and will play at a high level in a short time.”

And from former scout Russ Lande of the Sporting News and GM Jr.: “I think more than anything, since they are going to both [Robert Griffin III’s] and Luck's pro days, they want to be sure about Luck's arm strength as that is a concern amongst some. Other than that, from what I have been told they have already decided on Luck and would only change their mind if something completely unforeseen were to happen.”

The Colts watched Griffin's pro day at Baylor on Wednesday. RG3 threw 51 passes over 30 minutes with music he chose playing in the background.

Such is the low-key nature of the event for a top quarterback with a strong résumé on film.

RG3 still holds out slight hope that he can overtake Luck and be taken first by the Colts.

But the Baylor quarterback doesn’t believe he put any pressure on Luck with his good performance.

"Nah, no pressure,” RG3 said. “... He'll go out and dazzle you guys like we hope we did.”

What is the Luck camp hoping to show?

"Essentially, a wide-ranging skill set, consistency and explosiveness," said George Whitfield, the quarterback guru who's been working with Luck.

The first scout I spoke with said he figures the Colts will arrive early and/or stay late to chat with Luck and perhaps take him out to dinner. Informal interview time might allow them to pick up and flesh out a subject or two they’ve previously discussed. A coach or executive who didn’t get close to Luck at the combine could have that chance now.

The second scout said he thought the get-together would offer a chance for Luck to reaffirm to the Colts that he wants to play for the franchise, and that he and his family will not do what Eli Manning did in 2004. Manning forced the Chargers to deal him after they took him No. 1 because he didn’t think San Diego would offer a good chance to win. He’s now won two Super Bowls quarterbacking the New York Giants.

But there have been no indications that Luck would pull such a power play, that he doesn’t want to follow in Peyton Manning’s footsteps in Indianapolis or that he is wary of the Colts’ ability to rebuild in a speedy fashion.

Rare is the top quarterback’s pro day that doesn’t draw raves. I expect Luck will receive the same sort of praise RG3 did.

The Colts will certainly keep that in context.

They’ll be able to negotiate a deal in advance of the April 26 first round. The rookie deals outlined in the new CBA mean that won’t be complicated, but also mean there probably won’t be a rush.

Luck will surely make an official visit to team headquarters in Indianapolis between now and then.

“You get your résumé on film,” said scout No. 1. “Your references are your coaches. Through the interview process, people around the building find out about your approach and expectations.

“All this running around in tights, I think it’s more a dog and pony show than actual football.”

INDIANAPOLIS -- The two quarterbacks who will presumably be the top two picks in the NFL draft spoke to a good share of 750 credentialed reporters at the combine Friday afternoon.

Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III didn’t take a drop, make a read or throw a pass. Nothing that transpired had anything to do with football.

Yet fandom's need for information and evaluation will dictate a comparison, and here’s what will fuel it: Griffin was off the cuff, glib and quippy; Luck was boilerplate, personable for sure, but not as entertaining.

And so, the buzz from the scouting community that had long held that Griffin is a very good NFL prospect but Luck is a great one will now be tempered. Media will be influenced by what it just saw and heard and the gap between the two will close through no football function at all.

Think I overstate? A year ago we raced back to our laptops to write about how Ryan Mallett was defiant and how Cam Newton needed a scripted opening statement, unimpressed with either. And at least for a time the national stories on each influenced the national perception -- unfairly and, to be honest, inaccurately.

Brace for the 2012 version of that, starting right now. Measure it. And know that scouts are largely scoffing when they see it.

A few more thoughts out of Luck’s media session:

• At one end of the media room, a club level concourse at Lucas Oil Stadium, the pillars are decorated with pictures of Peyton Manning. It’s made for great art -- Manning looming over John Elway or Colts general manager Ryan Grigson. But Luck didn’t speak from the shadow of the legendary quarterback he may replace. He was at the other end of the room -- where photos of Gary Brackett and Marvin Harrison are part of the backdrop.

• Luck spoke fondly of Manning as he answered a question about the potential for replacing him: “Peyton was my hero growing up, he was my football hero. Who I modeled myself after in high school and middle school. You never truly replace a guy like that and who knows what happens? Who knows what happens? So many different things can happen. I’m not thinking about it.”

• The questions about Manning are inevitable, he said. “I understand the questions have to be asked, it’s part of it. I understand the speculation. In my mind too, nothing’s happened yet. I haven’t been drafted by any team and what Peyton has is still going on with the Colts. It’s not uncomfortable, I understand the questions have to be asked."

• Luck knows Manning some. He’s been to the family’s passing camp the past two summers. He sought out Manning when he was deciding to return to Stanford for his senior year. He got a few texts from Manning during the season. Griffin had said he’d be happy to hold a clipboard as Manning’s apprentice and Luck echoed the sentiment.

• He praised Griffin as “a great quarterback, a great competitor, real easy to get along with” but said he wasn’t motivated to compete against him for the No. 1 draft position. “I think everybody wants to be No. 1 but not at the expense of another person, if that makes sense,” he said.

• While he’s heard some call him a once-in-a-generation quarterback, Luck said things can change and he needs to pay no attention to such talk: “The game can change so quick and you can get caught behind whatever that is.”

• His current efforts are focused on quickening everything up, making “rhythmic, perfect drops every time” and playing super clean.

• Elway visits Stanford roughly twice a year and Luck has visited with him on those occasions. The biggest lesson he took away was what Elway told him about the Broncos' Super Bowl failures early in his career: “They were thinking too big picture. So it was always, ‘focus on that next play. What are you going to do the first play of the game?’”

• Luck's aware of the success his college coach, Jim Harbaugh, had as quarterback of the Colts -- mentioning Harbaugh’s “Captain Comeback” nickname and acknowledging Harbaugh’s spot in the Colts’ ring of honor.

• His meetings Thursday night included a stop with the Colts. He spoke with Clyde Christensen, the team’s receivers coach who was offensive coordinator under the previous regime.

• He’s still got two classes to take to earn his degree from Stanford. He’ll return starting April 1 and graduate in June.

• The quarterback will not throw here, but said no outside force influenced that decision. It has been reported his camp asked the Colts and suggested he not throw. He will do everything else while he’s in Indy.

The ongoing deck-shuffling that is NFL draft projections continued this week with ESPN's Mel Kiper and Todd McShay both releasing their latest respective projections.

They both agree on quarterback Andrew Luck as the No. 1 pick. No real shock there.

But taking a look at Kiper's latest Big Board, you see a pretty significant drop for offensive tackle Jonathan Martin, who slips from No. 13 last week to No. 19 this week.

Kiper isn't alone in his thinking. McShay's latest ranking of the top 32 players has Martin down to No. 24 after being at No. 17 last week.

McShay on Martin:

Martin continues to fall as other linemen emerge and his 2011 film shows him to be less dominant than expected. However, he still has the physical tools to become and NFL starter.

Kiper also dropped guard David DeCastro on his Big Board from No. 10 to 14. But DeCastro is where Kiper and McShay disagree. McShay actually moves DeCastro up one spot, from No. 14 to 13.

McShay also ranks tight end Coby Fleener at No. 29 (Kipers' Big Board only goes through his top 25).

Finally, Kiper released his Mock Draft 2.0.

Kiper on Luck and the No. 1 pick:

While the public relations drama continues between Jim Irsay and Peyton Manning, there's little drama surrounding whom the Colts will take with the No. 1 pick. I doubt Luck throws next week at the NFL combine, but his status among evaluators really isn't in question. Arm talent, strength, size, smarts, leadership, intangibles -- it's all there. The only question is whether he'll be serving an apprenticeship under Manning, but my guess right now would be that he won't have to.

Kiper has Martin headed to Arizona at No. 13 and DeCastro to the Bengals at No. 21.

It seems the Indianapolis Colts will finish with the worst record in the NFL this season and hold the No. 1 pick in the April draft. Will they use the pick to select Andrew Luck as Peyton Manning's successor? Will they trade the pick to a team that covets Luck? ESPN.com has covered all the scenarios.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- If anyone can offer an educated insight into Andrew Luck and how he compares to NFL great Peyton Manning, it's ESPN Insider Brock Huard, a former teammate of Manning's and now an ESPN college football analyst who has called some Stanford games the past couple of years.

Huard tackles why Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck is similar -- and in some cases, better -- than Manning was during his formative college years.

Writes Huard:

In the 14 years since Peyton Manning made his mark in Knoxville for the Tennessee Volunteers, I have not seen a college quarterback measure up to Peyton's standards and skill set -- until now. Stanford Cardinal QB Andrew Luck has the same prototypical size, the same durable build and the same refined, over-the-top delivery that equal Peyton's as a draft-day prospect.

We've heard lots of people say that Luck is the best quarterback prospect since Manning. But Huard does a good job backing up that statement.

Luck and the No. 6 Cardinal (3-0, 0-0) are coming off a bye week and host UCLA on Saturday. Through the first three games this season, Luck has completed 57-of-85 passes for 786 yards and eight touchdowns. Depending on which poll you believe, he's also Heisman frontrunner.