The Colts QB Crisis
This one might seem a bit dated already but I didn’t want one of the stupider stories from the past few weeks to go by unchecked.
The Colts have been weird at QB this season. Richardson, getting a mulligan on his rookie year, started us off. He held his own against Houston in week 1 and delivered what is still the throw of the season with an off-balance fling for 60 yards perfectly into a touchdown. Then he sucked a bunch in a loss to the Packers and a win over the Bears. Then he got a hip injury, was kept in the game, and the injury got worse. Then Flacco came out and beat the Steelers. Flacco balled out against the Jaguars, also in a loss, and then held the fort in a won over Tenessee. Then Richardson comes back against the Dolphins and is unremarkable. To this point Richardson seems to be Kaepernick: bullet cannon of an arm and an athletic freak, but low accuracy and absolutely zero touch pass game. Richardson was not inspiring in his return and then in the Texans game the young QB made a big mistake.
I’ve never seen a QB admit they got tired before and take themselves out of the game. Players removing themselves is not unheard of, in fact it happens all the time, but when was the last time the QB did it? I don’t think Richardson was wrong to do it per say, but he was absolutely a fool to admit it. If he said he got the wind knocked out of him there’d be no issue. If he said he thought he tweaked something and needed a moment to check, I think this would be a non-story. He specifically said he was tired, didn’t think he’d be able to run the next play, and took himself out. Sports media exploded. Every player you can think of was slamming the guy. It makes sense too: Richardson was drafted as a raw athletic freak. Endurance and athleticism is something he was supposed to have. Old ass Joe Flacco scrambled for 21 yards in a play earlier that year and played the next snap no problem, but this early 20-something kid built for action was pooped? Even if it was true, you don’t admit that.
Sure enough after a week of giving Richardson the ol’ “he’s our guy” defense Shane Steichen suddenly went back on his word and now Joe Flacco gave the team the best chance to win. At the time it was confusing. Richardson is the future (presumably), Joe Flacco is not. Richardson is the kind of raw prospect that needs as many reps as possible. Benching him for Flacco is silly. It felt like Steichen might be feeling pressure from his notoriously unhinged boss or maybe was rebelling against him to begin with. Flacco looked like ass against the Bills and Richardson came back out for the Jets. He then proceeded to have his best game yet against the Aaron Rodgers Failure Posse. In retrospect it seems like it may have been a punishment benching for one week to get Richardson to a better place as motivation. For the moment, maybe it worked? Beating the Jets isn’t an accomplishment but he looked like a viable QB during the game, which is.
The Colts play the Lions this week. I assume things will go poorly.
I think everyone would have believed the story that Richardson was benched due to that admission if Flacco only started for 1 game. The fact that they started him for 2 weeks implies that they genuinely believed that Old Man Joe gave them the best chance to win, and obviously that completely backfired on them.
The Colts’ handling of Richardson is just as bizarre as it is stupid. Regardless of what you may have thought of him as a prospect coming out (I was extremely low on him, FWIW), I think everyone acknowledged that he was the type of player that you had to be extremely patient with. He needed a lot of reps, and his tape was absolutely going to look abysmal for a while before you started seeing any sort of consistent results from him. To pick a guy like that, then bench him during what is effectively his rookie season due to inevitable poor play, just screams that the Colts had absolutely no idea what they were doing when they drafted him. And based on that, I can’t say that I trust that staff to help AR develop moving forward. Maybe something changes, but more than likely Anthony Richardson will go down as another bust that’s a fun “What-if?” for some fans.
It was probably a bit of both. That may have been the initial intention. Flacco’s second start may have more to do with what we don’t know, like the vibe around the team or what happened at practice in between the weeks. I agree with your assessment on him as a prospect though. As an SEC fan, I had him pegged extremely low as a prospect but of the very thing he’s been doing all season. He’s consistently inconsistent.
Yeah I can see that. It just looks really bad all around that Flacco started for more than one week at all.
I feel like one’s pre-Draft assessment of Anthony Richardson is heavily based on how much SEC-ball they watched while he was in college. I used to live in SEC Country, so I still follow it pretty heavily and I was genuinely baffled by the amount of hype AR was getting coming out of Florida. The physical traits were all there, sure, but they didn’t appear nearly consistent enough to justify making him a T-5/10 prospect. I guess that’s why I’m not a draft scout lol.
The thing about young QBs too is they don’t always “click” and then are good for the next 15 years. Some of them certainly do, but sophomore slumps happen. Look at CJ Stroud. Dude was the best Rookie QB of the past decade and now he’s struggling to adjust to the league adjusting (injuries certainly haven’t helped either). Even Kaep had a lot of success early before stunningly forgetting how to see the field.
I think the hard part is knowing when to call it quits with a QB, particularly one that is both as gifted and bone-headed as Richardson. It certainly wasn’t a few games into his first full season, and I wonder if that lack of trust is too much to overcome. I don’t think this coaching staff was the right one to maximize who Richardson can be, and I’m not sure we’ll ever really get the chance to see that at this point.
It was 100% a punishment benching
I enjoy basically every Draw Play, but this one actually made me laugh out loud during a work meeting. Bravo, Dave.
Bonus panel:
Steichen season
I know this is irrelevant but, doesn’t it seem weird that the steelers are the only team to not get a uniform update recently. I think a naive Nike designers comic with the steelers begging them for an update would be funny.
“per say”?
OT I know, but… (maybe we do need that Discord…)
There was a hell of a stat on Unsportsmanlike this morning. The last EIGHT Browns coaches were fired after losing to AFC North sides – Kitchens and Williams were both by Cincinnati, but the six before that – Crennel, Mangina, Shurmur, Chudzinski, Pettine and Jackson – were ALL beaten by Pittsburgh in their final game.
I looked it up, and it’s legit. Williams is the ONLY one of the last THIRTEEN Browns coaches, permanent or interim and even going back to before their hiatus, with a record over .500 (and even that’s only 5-3; Stefanski is 40-40). People forget that when Bellendcheat was coach before they dickmoved to Baltimore, he went 36-44. Couldn’t even cheat his way over .500. The place really is fucking cursed.
Pittsburgh visits the flaming river tonight. I’ll be watching Critical Role (very much the pointy end of campaign 3 now), but I’ll have an eye on the score…
All I’m saying is Old Man Joe wouldn’t need much tweaking to be Darth Vlacco, helmetless. If the need should ever arise
Im a Florida Gator fan and I watched Richardson play. The problem was that he desperately NEEDED to stay in college 2 more years. NO WAY was he ready to be an NFL QB and it shows.
During the draft time someone made a good comment “Richardson is a lot like Vince Young, million dollar arm…ten cent head”.
I have no idea what the Colts were thinking drafting him in the 1st round.. Hes a PROJECT and should have been a 3rd or 4th rounder and held the clipboard for a few years.
Well they threw him right into the fire, time will tell how he turns out.