Week 9 Sunday Drive + Thoughts on Anthony Richardson

Enjoy the Schadenfreude

Note: I was about 5 minutes from hitting send when the news dropped that Anthony Richardson is being benched for Joe Flacco. This was quite surprising to me even after it was somewhat forshadowed yesterday. I’m not going to re-write 3,000 words when almost all of it still applies and this just re-contextualizes it. Suffice to say I’m beyond furious as a fan of this team, and the harsh words I had already drafted for Steichen has only intensified. Benching Richardson at this point is admitting defeat on an experiment that hadn’t even been conducted. You drafted an extremely raw player 4th overall, and didn’t have the patience to give them a half-season worth of full games. These are the actions of a coaching staff that has no idea what kind of team they have, or what kind of pick they made in 2023. It’s a rutterless ship, and while I don’t want to discuss people’s livelihoods lightly, there is no reason why Shane Steichen should ever be put in charge of an NFL program again, regardless of whether this move improves the team short-term, because it probably will. But that’s not a meaningful goal. A wild card loss is not a meaningful goal worth pursuing. The only worthwhile goal of this season was to evalute Anthony Richardson fully and completely. That goal is now taken off the table by choice, and the team will once again have no realistic pathway to QB upside in the short or medium term. Suffice to say it’s going to be extremely difficult to continue to emotionally invest myself in this team. And now: the column as it was previous to this news:

I’ve been tweeting about it non-stop so might as well put some thoughts down in long form.

First off, if anyone somehow does not know — I am a Colts fan. I would argue that my analysis on Colts-related items probably has a better batting average than the other 31 teams over the years, so I don’t think my fandom often gets too far in the way of my analysis, and it’s not like I cape up for everyone with a horseshoe on their helmet (see: Pittman, Michael). But I try to be as open and honest with you all about my perspective on the Colts because you deserve to know where I’m coming from and make your own decisions.

That means you might put more weight on certain things where my closeness to the team is of use — like Josh Downs and Michael Pittman being a lot closer in talent than it seemed from the box score in 2022 or Tyler Goodson likely closing on Trey Sermon’s job in Week 6.

Similarly, I am a Tennessee Volunteers fan (because college football in Canada was depressing so I googled where Peyton Manning went to school at the age of 7 and started wearing orange on saturdays). And that perspective proved beneficial this week with Cedric Tillman, while I’ve never shown that kind of optimism for his Volunteer temmate, Jalin Hyatt.

All this to say, I think I generally do a reasonable job of blending fantasy analysis with heart-on-sleeve fandom of a couple teams, but while you can take what you wish from a fantasy perspective, this introduction is primarily about the Colts in an ‘IRL’ sense and if you choose to accuse me of copium, that’s fine.

For what it’s worth, my perspective coming into the season on Anthony Richardson from a fantasy perspective was largely aligned with my view of him from a real-life perspective. I felt he was a misunderstood prospect to some degree, in that despite being extremely raw, he had elite sack avoidance and a relatively low scramble rate, which demonstrated an advanced ability to get manage the pocket and a better-than-advertised ability to read the field for a QB with only one year of collegiate starting experience. However, I have fully acknowledged that his short and intermediate accuracy is a massive problem (he’s generally been strong on deep balls in both college and the pros)

As a result, my view coming into this year was that he was likely to score a lot of fantasy points and was a strong redraft target (not a good take thus far), but was a very risky dynasty asset at cost (I called him the worst value of Round 1 on DynastyPoints this summer).

What we’ve seen through a year and a half in the NFL is pretty much what he was in college — a great athlete and a weapon on designed runs, a volatile but dangerous deep passer with elite arm strength and reasonable deep accuracy, a natural in the pocket who evades rushers and gets the ball out before taking a sack, and a QB with glaringly bad accuracy in the short and intermediate areas of the field, often as a result of non-viable footwork.

The paradox of Anthony Richardson is that he comes pre-loaded with the physical tools that many QBs will never holster. And he also has a few natural instincts for playing the position. He’s legitimately number 1 in the NFL in sack avoidance, which is unheard of for a QB this raw, even compared to other mobile QBs.

Watch him navigate this pocket on against the blitz, stepping up away from a free rusher despite a crowd in the middle to deliver the ball. Most QBs his age would either not sense the rusher and take the sack, or else bail backwards and have to start from square 1 on the play. (Watch the linked video with commentary from Matt Waldman, or suffer through my low quality screenshots)

Now here’s the other side of the paradox: despite (or possibly to some extent because of) possessing by natural instinct what many more seasoned QBs don’t gain after 10 years of quarterbacking, Richardson has never developed some of the most important ingredients of the position.

On this play, there is a free runner to the left (or in other words, he is “hot” to the left). Typically, a “hot answer” in this situation is to throw to the vacated area. In this case, #45 is a linebacker who is set up right over top of Pittman in the slot. As soon as he blitzes that means Pittman is completely un-covered at least at the start of his route (you can see him running across the 50-yard line below)

Realistically, the ball should have already been thrown. If not, Richardson still has time to hit him on the shallow crosser in the second window once he clears #43 who is “green dogging” on this play and isn’t part of the coverage unit. (Green Dogging means he has a coverage responsibility assigned to a player who might run a route, or might stay in to protect. In this case he’s assigned to Jonathan Taylor. Once Taylor stays in pass protection, 43 comes on a delayed blitz)

But Richardson isn’t making these diagnoses. To be fair, I’m making these diagnoses 24 hours later while watching a 2 minute clip over and over, so I’m not going to act like this is easy. But the point is that Richardson avoids this sack, but really he does it based on feel rather than accurately diagnosing that he’s up against a zero-blitz, otherwise the ball is out to Pittman in one second.

What Richardson winds up doing on this play is throwing an out-route to Will Mallory (who’s just about to break to the sideline at the bottom of the screenshot above). The throw winds up catchable, but is behind him, and the defender makes a play to break up the pass.

It’s a mildly inaccurate pass, hardly an inexcusably inaccurate pass relative to the degree of difficulty, but it’s only difficult because the ball wasn’t thrown to a wide open receiver two seconds earlier.

I’m not going to go play-by-play here, but I picked this one to cover in detail because I think it’s a good example of the good and the bad with Richardson right now. He makes a great instinctual and athletic play, but is felled by his inexperience and inaccuracy.

Can the accuracy improve? I’m not sure. There are not a lot of examples of QBs making huge improvements to their accuracy in the NFL.

Can the decision-making and recognition improve? It’s at least plausible. Despite being a ‘year 2 QB,’ he’s only played a majority of snaps in 7 total NFL games, and only started a single year in college. He’s younger than Jayden Daniels, Bo Nix and Michael Penix Jr. People often compare him to Josh Allen, but he had over 20 NFL starts by this point in his second NFL season, and started over twice as many college games.

Any conversation of benching Anthony Richardson is categorically insane to me, and totally incoherent decision-making from an organizational perspective. When you turned in the card you were betting on the ability to develop his accuracy in the league — there was no secret about his accuracy in college. Nobody who watched a single snap of this guy at Florida would tell you his accuracy was NFL-ready, so if you didn’t think accuracy was a developable trait he shouldn’t have been on your board.

Oh, the guy with 23 career starts in college and the NFL combined isn’t consistently diagnosing blitzes and making hot reads? Well colour me shocked. Surely the Colts knew they were drafting a QB who would need to develop this ability through NFL reps.

Unless the team completely mis-evaluated the player they drafted, they knew — at least at the time — that they were taking on a project. As a result, it was incumbent upon them to create as pressure free of an environment as possible for him to develop on his own timeline.

I thought that was going to be the case. I was strongly encouraged when he was named the Week 1 starter in 2023, and when Shane Steichen and Jim Irsay more or less admitted that his development was a more important goal than winning games in the short term. Despite a series of injuries, his actual play on the field was pretty exciting as a rookie.

Were there bizarre misses? Yes. Were there questionable decisions? For sure. Did he also make a lot of plays to make up for those mistakes? Often times, yes.

I came away from 2023 sad that injuries robbed him of a season full of reps, but encouraged with what we saw, and excited for a full-season of development ahead.

Going into this season, everything the Colts did screamed that they were treating this as rookie year take 2. Despite glaring holes in the secondary, the team didn’t bring in a single outside free agent at the position and spent their first two draft picks on high-value positions of strength. Teams that have super bowl expectations don’t decline to spend money on their weaknesses, and then draft BPA over need repeatedly. I’m not critiquing the approach, I think it was reasonable! In fact, I would argue that if the goal was super-bowl, or even playoffs-or-bust, that it would have put counter-productive pressure on Richardson among the fan base and media, heading into a year where he needed to prioritize his development.

In many ways I thought this was a dream scenario. Our defense would suck, keeping expectations low. But the O-Line was a top unit, the WR room perhaps lacked a top-end star but was loaded with depth, Jonathan Taylor is one of the best rushers in the league, and Shane Steichen just led a top-10 offense with Gardiner Minshew II at QB.

He was set up well to succeed.

Then Week 1 happened — basically my dream result. It was a heartbreaking loss, yes, but one squarely on the defense’s shoulders, while Richardson made several remarkable plays, including possibly the best throw of the season, and almost led a comeback victory — scoring TDs on his last two possessions of the game.

But Weeks 2 and 3 quickly followed — brutal performances by Richardson, and then Week 4 — after marching the offense effortlessly down the field for two TD drives (the latter of which was capped off by Joe Flacco after being set up inside the 10), Richardson suffered an injury, on a scramble where he could have slid, and was once again developing from the sideline.

Richardson came back in Week 6 and turned in possibly his worst game of the year, at least as a passer (he was consistently impactful on the ground).

But the more damaging development was that the Colts had won 4 of their 5 games — two in games started and finished by Richardson where the team won more in spite of than because of him. They also won the Steelers game, in which Richarson set them up with a 14-0 lead, but Flacco has somehow assumed credit for the result. And they won a sloppy game vs. the Titans where Flacco played just as poorly as Richardson has in some of his wins, but seems to get much more credit for poorly-played victories. The lone loss was ironically Flacco’s best performance, a 37-34 loss to the Jaguars in which the defense hit complete rock bottom.

This 5-game stretch included 2 wins vs. 2 of the league’s worst teams, 1 loss to a similarly hapless opponent, and 2 somewhat fluky games vs. bad offenses.

This team has 3 true stars — and they play guard, defensive tackle and running back. They have one of the league’s worst secondaries, and have depth but no star power at WR and Edge. Teams like this are not contenders, at least not without a superstar QB.

This is not a likely playoff team, and certainly not a super bowl contender. It’s a frisky bunch with a range of outcomes somewhere between 6-11 at worst, and a 10-7 wild card weekend casualty at best. That’s irrespective of who plays QB, and was always the case with this roster unless Richardson came out in Week 1 and showed himself to be a top-10 player at the position immediately.

We are mid.

So sure, you can play Joe Flacco if you want, but we already watched the best case version of the Joe Flacco Colts lose in the wild card round to the Bills in 2020, the worst case version of the Joe Flacco Colts wind up hiring Jeff Saturday in 2022, and the median versions of the Joe Flaco Colts lose a heartbreaking Week 18 game to miss the playoffs by a nose in 2021 and 2023.

I have no desire to watch further iterations of the Rivers, Wentz, Ryan, or Minshew Colts.

Would it be disappointing if precious years of DeForest Buckner, Quentin Nelson and Jonathan Taylor’s prime are wasted by a QB who doesn’t pan out? Certainly. It would be more disappointing if they were wasted in service of a goal with a known ending.

And for anyone who says the story is already written on Anthony Richardson such that he should be sent to the bench, then I just can’t imagine you could have ever thought drafting him 4th overall was a good idea. And maybe it wasn’t a good idea! But if you’re Shane Steichen and Chris Ballard, you thought it was a good idea then, so you better think it’s an idea worth seeing through at least the end of 2024 when he’s not yet completed a half season of games in the league.

And this brings me to my anger regarding Shane Steichen’s comments today that they were evaluating who would be QB1 moving forward, and criticizing him for subbing off the field on a 3rd and goal play from the 23 after a long scramble.

I don’t know what’s in Steichen’s mind and the degree to which he’s actually considering making a QB change. But for that to be anywhere in the realm of possibilities is inexcusable, and incoherent with what he’s doing week-to-week.

Richardson had two designed runs called this week — notably one of them was on a 4th and 3, which he converted with ease. Essentially this was Steichen admitting that when he had to have a play, this was what he thought would work best, but otherwise shelving it.

This makes a certain degree of sense. Again, I don’t really care if they win games or not, and if you want to keep Richardson healthy while forcing him to develop as a drop back passer, I have time for that perspective. But if you’re considering a change at QB because you’re not getting enough out of the offense, then how about you let the guy do what he does best?

In other words, there is no sense in protecting a guy from injury if his job is on the line. Let him play for his future without one hand tied behind his back, for better or for worse.

And finally things brings me to the most aggravating part of the commentary about this game. Rather than discussing his back-breaking interception, or inability to tun out of bounds on a final-drive scramble, national media has taken aim at the Colts this week because Anthony Richardson ‘tapped out’ on a 3rd and goal from the 23 with the team down 20-10 in the 3rd quarter.

The play came after two consecutive long scrambles — the first was a TD to Alec Pierce, called back by OPI, and then he had to throw off a 320-pound tackle before scrambling out to his right just past the line of scrimmage.

At the end of the play he subbed off, and later said it was due to exhaustion rather than injury. Naturally, people have said this amounts to quitting on his team, or not caring enough to battle through pain, or whatever other tough guy trope language you want to throw at me.

This conversation is absurd. The resulting play was 3rd and goal from the 23. Eventually Steichen calls a HB draw and they kick a FG. Maybe that’s the call all along and if so, Richardson could probably have gotten back to the huddle and handed the ball off without an issue. But Flacco was equally capable of that so wha’s really the harm?

The only potential harm was if Steichen does decide to remain aggressive and call a pass play that Richardson feels he can’t execute in that moment. He either then has to check into a run himself which is the same result as what he did, he plays out the pass play while compromised, possibly leading to a larger mistake that wipes out their FG opportunity, or he wastes a TO when the drive is effectively over and they need to preserve time for later in the game.

Even if you’re on the side of being quite upset about this situation, you have to admit that it made no tangible negative impact on the game. And arguably prevented a potential negative outcome.

Now I understand that locker rooms have a certain culture, and when a veteran leader like Ryan Kelly publicly critcizes Richardson for this decision, you know it clearly didn’t go over well.

To a degree, the frustration of the locker room is understandable. It’s not their job to worry about the long-term horizon of the team, or to orient decision-making in terms of super bowl win equity over an infinite time horizon. I bet a lot of them, if put on truth serum, would tell you that Flacco gives this team the best chance to win the upcoming game, and should start. And so to see the QB they’re potentially begrudgingly battling for all day come out of the game due to fatigue, I get how that leads to resentment that he’s not working as hard for you as you perceive yourself to be working for him. Fair enough.

My guess is that that this sentiment is why Steichen also criticized the decision in his media availability, in addition to saying he’s evaluating who will start at QB in Week 9.

And look — I never played in a football locker room. But I’m happy to tell you that a lot of “locker room culture” in all sports is baseless, and hostile, as is the media environment that perpetuates these kinds of stories because they think they’re more likely to generate engagement than a nuanced conversation about how a player actually played. We don’t have to accept the circular logic that because something makes a bunch of people mad it’s therefore something you can’t do.

I’m not going to call Richardson some kind of visionary or trendsetter. I highly doubt he gave it that much thought. But I am glad he’s not so tangled up in the inane, optics-focused dogma that dominates football media culture to forge on to make a potential mistake instead of simply doing what he felt was best in the moment, “bad look” be damned.

More crucially, when a 22-year old kid is taking this much criticism for it from the outside, this is a moment where you need a coach to step up and show that those inside the building have his back. I wanted to see Steichen make an emphatic defense of Richardson and his work ethic yesterday, or at the very least that if he couldn’t find anything nice to say, he’d choose to say nothing and keep his criticisms in house.

You want to talk about selfish? To me it’s selfish when a coach decides to use his media availability to throw a 22-year old under the bus in hopes that his own reputation won’t be tied to the quarterback’s. I have zero time for that. It’s selfish, and it has the potential to further harm Richardson’s confidence before he (presumably) starts his first Sunday Night Football game of his career.

It was especially aggravating given the actual nature of this game — which featured critical mistakes from Richardson yes, but also a ton of examples of his receivers failing him in big spots.

Watch this thread from Benjamin Solak and tell me that Richardson bears the entire responsibility for his 10/32. This is a time to build up a young player and quiet the pressure being placed on him by the media and the fans, not to bury them further.

So where do we go from here? I’m not sure.

My thoughts a week ago were that Chris Ballard is not going to get a 9th or 10th year as GM with a 7th starting QB. And they’re not going to hire a new GM without the ability to hire a coach. So to me this tied the triumvirate of Ballard, Steichen and Richardson’s futures together as one unit. But if this week is any indication, Steichen is trying to untangle himself from this web rather than commit to the chosen path.

We’ll see how that works out for him, but the vibes for Richardson’s future are increasingly shaky, even if in my opinion that’s not justified. I hope for his sake and the Colts’ that everyone calms down and we get to see Richardson make real strides the rest of the season, but it’s safe to say I’m no longer counting on it.

And now: your RB content.