New England Patriots veteran Tom Brady faces another marquee quarterback in prime time on Sunday night and he’s envious of what Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts can do.

“He’s a great player, in his third year, and he’s had a lot of success,” Brady said Wednesday of the Colts’ impressive quarterback. “Their offense is doing a great job this year; they score a lot of points (averaging a league-high 32.2 per game), especially at home. He’s kind of the ringleader. He does a lot of things I wish I could do.”

Brady, who faced Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos in his last game before the bye week, continued his praise for the 6-foot-4, 240-pound Luck.

“He’s big, fast, shrugs off blockers. He makes a lot of extended plays,” Brady said. “He’s a great passer. I think they’ve thrown for more yards (3,105) at this point in the year than any other team in history. It speaks to what they’re doing offensively, and it’s a great challenge for our defense. We’re going to have to score a lot. When you play another great offense, you’re going to have to put up a lot of points, similar to our last game (against Denver). We realize we have a big job, too.

“My focus is on the other side of the ball, but you also know you’re not going to be able to score 13 points and win the game.”

The 6-3 Colts also are coming off a bye week to face the 7-2 Patriots, who are on a five-game winning streak.

Luck, who has 3,085 yards with 26 touchdowns and nine interceptions, is on pace to break Manning’s single-season passing record of 5,477 yards last season.

Luck is showing significant improvement with his accuracy. He completed 54.1 percent of his passes as a rookie, 60.2 percent in his second year and 63.6 so far in 2014. He also has 129 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 35 carries.

Brady has been working on his mobility this season.

“I think I just have a little better understanding of how to accomplish that than I’ve had in the past,” he said. “I’ve tried to work hard on it this year, and hopefully it will keep paying off. You always want to try to do things better, no matter what they are. I always want to be the best I can mechanically. I want to be the best I can health-wise. I want to be the best I can with my energy and my leadership.

“It’s just a constant pursuit of trying to be better at every little aspect of the game. You just can’t stand back there all day and expect everything in pass protection to work out and throw the ball on time. There are a lot of times where you’re going to have to be able to really ad-lib and make some plays. Our guys have adjusted to that and made some great plays out of the pocket, so we’ll probably need to do that again this week.”

One benefit to playing on Sunday night at Indianapolis is that Brady will have an opportunity to watch a pair of his former backups face each other as starters.

The game is cleverly being called the Brady Backup Bowl when Ryan Mallett of the Houston Texans and Brian Hoyer of the Cleveland Browns square off Sunday in Cleveland.

“It’s pretty cool,” he said. “It speaks to their work ethic and what they’ve been able to accomplish. They both have overcome quite a bit in their career. So it will be fun to see. We play at 8 o’clock, so I’m sure a lot guys on our team will be paying attention.”