LANDOVER, Md. — Their pull is so great — and the expectations of both already so high — Dan Snyder was selling $35 T-shirts to commemorate a matchup that didn’t even count.
But in this case, the hype for Andrew Luck’s Colts vs. Robert Griffin III’s Redskins turned out to be justified.
In one of the more entertaining halves of August football you’ll see, the top two picks in April’s NFL Draft dueled to a virtual draw yesterday with each quarterback making typical rookie mistakes, posting strong numbers overall and providing at least one “wow!” moment apiece.
Judging strictly from the passer play, the long-term — and perhaps even short-term — future indeed seems bright for both franchises after a 30-17 Redskins victory at FedEx Field that had enough back-and-forth action and big plays courtesy of Griffin and Luck in the first half to be downright unrecognizable to a Jets fan.
When Luck wasn’t tossing a 31-yard scoring pass under pressure to T.Y. Hilton that was so pretty it would have made Tom Brady jealous, Griffin was leading the Redskins on textbook touchdown marches of 66 and 80 yards in the second quarter. Griffin capped the second with a 4-yard toss to Santana Moss off an option rollout play that will give defensive coordinators nightmares.
“I was just having fun out there, running around and trying to make things happen,” said Griffin, who finished 11-for-17 for 74 yards in his home debut and would have had more if not for three missed deep balls.
Luck felt the same way after completing 14 of his 23 attempts for 151 yards and the highlight-reel TD despite being sacked twice behind a wretched offensive line that could be his rookie-year undoing.
“They brought a lot of pressure, so this was a great learning experience for me,” Luck said. “That made it fun for me.”
It likely will never become the NFL’s version of Magic vs. Bird, but it was difficult to remember a preseason game that looked this delicious on paper, with this much young star power and charisma.
No wonder the league put it in the rarely used exhibition time slot of 4 p.m. on a Saturday, with the NFL Network cameras in tow.
Who could blame them? Luck, the former Stanford star and No. 1 overall choice, already looks at times like a 10-year veteran in just three preseason starts and already has Colts fans feeling as if the March release of Peyton Manning happened a long, long time ago.
The same could almost be said of Griffin after Mike Shanahan yesterday finally took the wraps off the reigning Heisman Trophy winner whose shotgun arm and Michael Vick-like running ability prompted the Redskins to practically mortgage their future to land him.
It wasn’t worth a $35 commemorative shirt — “If it’s making money for somebody, good for them,” Luck sneered — but for roughly 2 1/2 quarters, it was fun to glimpse such a big chunk of the league’s future on the same field.
“You can’t run from [the Luck-Griffin] comparisons,” Griffin said. “It’s going to follow us our whole careers, so you have to embrace it.”
At least for one day, consider it embraced.
bhubbuch@nypost.com