Colts going back to QB Anthony Richardson shows their plan has shifted to his development
Ice Cube got fired on his day off; Anthony Richardson got re-hired on his.
Richardson is this week’s ‘Quarterback of the Week’ even though he hasn’t even started a game since tapping out against the Texans on Oct. 27, because in a league where a quarterback is only as valuable as what happened in the last game — whether he played or not — sometimes a couple of weeks off the field is better than another bad game on it.
Three weeks after the tap out, less than two weeks after naming Joe Flacco the starter “moving forward”, and only two days after confirming that Flacco would start the next game, head coach Shane Steichen flipped the script again by naming Richardson the starter for the rest of the season.
Probably not. With a 2% chance to win the division and less than a 20% chance to sneak into the final AFC Wild Card, Steichen’s indecisiveness is an indication that the Colts are once again focusing on developing 2023’s fourth overall pick following two losses with Flacco since making the first change.
With two seven-win teams in the AFC North (7-2 Steelers, 7-3 Ravens) and the 6-3 Chargers knocking on the door of a three-game advantage over Indianapolis, there’s really only one path to the AFC playoffs for six-loss teams like Indianapolis, Miami, and Cincinnati: The final Wild Card.
That currently belongs to the 5-5 Broncos, so the Colts are technically only one game out of the playoffs. But that still means that the Colts have to be better than the Broncos, and also better than the Dolphins and Bengals. It’s improbable enough to assume that even if Indianapolis were to go 5-2 with Joe Flacco, they would still miss the playoffs.
The rest of the season is dedicated to developing Anthony Richardson because there are no other worthy goals left for the Colts.
The most remarkable thing about benching Richardson is that he’s playing as well as should have been expected after a college career in which he sat on the bench for two years and then only completed 54% of his passes as a junior at Florida.
The Colts drafted a quarterback ranked 102nd in completion percentage in college and then act surprised when he’s on pace to set new modern NFL records for inaccuracy?
Yeah, it’s bad, but also not surprising. Richardson had a difficult time getting playing time in college despite his tremendous athletic gifts and the one thing he really couldn’t afford to do was sit for another two years after being drafted. Richardson had 393 pass attempts in college, so he’s not worth comparing to players like Patrick Mahomes because he sat as a rookie with the Chiefs in 2017 after he threw 1,349 attempts in college.
Asked what Richardson needs to do to improve, offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter refused to get into specifics:
“He’s got to keep putting that work in,” offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter said. “We’re able to do that within the practice structure: getting reps, working individual (drills), throwing the ball to the receivers, all the stuff that quarterbacks do. We’re working on all sorts of stuff.
“I don’t want to pinpoint one or two – sort of put anything out there. We’re just working on getting better. All of us. Anthony’s right there with us, and we’re working behind the scenes on that right now.”
Even Richardson doesn’t know, telling reporters after his benching, “I’m not necessarily sure which one thing in general it is” that he needs to work on, other than “all aspects”.
That sounds like a lot to get done without playing.
Despite how ludicrous the number “44%” looks next to a QBs name in the NFL, Anthony Richardson is not even close to being the least valuable quarterback in the league according to Next Gen Stats:
Kevin O'Connell’s words of encouragement for Anthony Richardson:
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 7, 2024
pic.twitter.com/1c1EQbWurE
Anthony Richardson has a lot to prove as a quarterback and that’s been true since he was 18, but he doesn’t have to prove it this season.
It was puzzling that the Colts would draft such an inexperienced quarterback with the fourth overall pick because the team didn’t seem as bad as their 2022 record indicated, but since that’s what they did, surely Indianapolis had to accept from that moment that Richardson would play extremely badly within the first couple of years.
Then Richardson got hurt and the Colts were good enough to go 7-6 with Gardner Minshew, proving that yet, this is a playoff caliber team with a good quarterback.
1. The Colts needed a QB who was ready; they instead picked one who isn’t.
2. Richardson needed to go to a bad team; he went to a good team.
Now after a year and a half of missed connections, the two sides are finally on the same page even if it’s not the book they wanted: Bad quarterback AND bad team ... which equals a good opportunity to see the Colts and Anthony Richardson can fail — or succeed — together.
