The Indianapolis Colts didn’t have a plan for Anthony Richardson, but rather they had an idea of a plan.
Richardson, the fourth overall pick in 2023, needed representatives on the field to build his raw potential. The Colts and the rest of the league knew it. Then Diez starts, and with the worst total ratio in the league, he has been benched for veteran Joe Flacco.
Sources telling CBS Sports describe Richardson’s benching as a double. First, the effects on the field didn’t look like a mature, symmetrical, sunlit building for the 22-year-old quarterback, and there were unanswered questions about why things didn’t add up. Second, you discover a schism between a normal supervisor who focused his task on correctly selecting this selection and the training staff who seeks to gain from that selection.
A couple of advantages concerned preparation issues. Coaches spent hours off the practice field working with Richardson this season, and the consequences were not reflected on the field.
His laugh-out-loud admission closer to Sunday’s loss that he quit the sport due to exhaustion was seen as “the final straw,” according to one source. But it was not the important thing to consider sending him to the bench.
The vault room rarely rioted, assets say, but the coaches were so sunlit that Flacco gave the team the best anticipation to win. It is imaginable that the profile of the “Sunday Night Football” tournament against the Vikings also played an important role in the decision of this event.
“You can’t allow him to go to a nationally televised game and have Minnesota crucify him,” a source said of the plan for Brian Flores, who ranks first in interceptions and 10th in opposing passers.
When Richardson returns to the lineup it’s not transparent. His benching is indefinite, and head coach Shane Steichen stated at this time that Flacco is the starter “for the future.” The Colts’ four post-war games rank in the top 11 in the league in terms allowed per sport.
Richardson played and started 10 games. He accounted for 12 total touchdowns and 11 passes. His six fumbles this season (including two lost fumbles) are a solution to league supremacy despite missing 40% of the team’s offensive snaps this year.
According to closest generation statistics, Richardson had the league’s lowest overall passing percentages when unconfused (48.1%), underforce (38.9%), unblitzed (50.5%), bombed (26.5%) and towards visible targets (62.1%). His 48.1% passing mark when not confused is about 20 percentage points short of the next-rated passer.
Upon leaving Florida, there were concerns about Richardson’s traumatic history. He started in the school’s top 13 games before entering the draft. He suffered severe shoulder trauma that ended his season for a year, and of the ten NFL games he started in, he completed six of them.
Resources also lamented Richardson’s absence from the team facility over the past year while he recovered from shoulder surgery. The team expected him to spend more time there throughout the past season, and some believe that has resulted in a lack of build in Generation 2.
“More than anything, this shows the disconnect between the college game and the professional game,” one NFL general manager mentioned in this presentation. “And for every CJ Stroud and Jayden Daniels, there will be quarterbacks who will take time to develop.”
Basic supervisor Chris Ballard & Co. seemed able to envision this from the beginning. Richardson’s tantalizing talent overcame concerns about his lack of experience.
“He’s got to come in and make a living like all the players we bring in. Let’s not expect him to be Superman from Day 1,” Ballard said the night Indianapolis drafted Richardson. “I think history has shown that there aren’t many of them that are Superman from day 1. Some of them take two or three years to become a really good player.
“They gave us a chance to let those guys get together and play. They’re having some struggles and once they’ve started working through the scrimmages and ultimately their ability, the more they play, their ability will come through.”
Everyone from Tom Brady to I’m Sick has talked about the lack of quarterback development and the quickness NFL teams use to get those players going. Probably no one has said it better than Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell: “I think organizations fail young quarterbacks before young quarterbacks fail organizations.”
The one who has had the playing field in Indianapolis is dehydrated to resolve himself at this level. It’s a franchise that preached resilience for Richardson 18 months ago, but it’s also a franchise that can carry a banner by producing the NFL’s top four.
The verdict for recruiting Richardson was usually a collaboration with Irsay, Ballard and Steichen. But in a draft with Bryce Young and CJ Stroud, Richardson became, above all, the person with the most power in that trend.
“If we had the first pick in the draft, we would probably take Anthony,” Irsay instructed reporters closest to the draft. “That’s how much we liked it.”
“I always felt Richardson was going to be the guy we went with, from the beginning.”
What many around the league are trying to understand is how the plan for Richardson was so temporarily thwarted. Steichen took over Richardson’s bench in this presentation, and assets imagine the coach making that decision signifies some degree of misalignment between the general supervisor and the training staff.
“What are you really playing for? The playoffs to keep your job? If you win nine games and don’t make the playoffs, it was a lost season,” said one high-ranking executive. “When you make the playoffs and lose, it’s still a misuse of your company’s past. If you’re more concerned about your job and job security, does that really help that? Since you’re going to relive it after 12 months. That part of this doesn’t make sense to me seems very shortsighted.
“You’re going to have to endure the pain. You want it now or later. You’ve compromised the fourth choice with the pain.”
Ballard is 58-64-1 as general manager, with 4 successful seasons out of seven years. He has two playoff appearances and one victory. The quarterback decided to be the savior of the franchise in the post-Andrew Success years and was simply benched indefinitely. The Colts, despite being 4-4, are a game and a half away (plus losing the tiebreaker to Houston) for the AFC South section.
Ballard is now in his eighth season as a regular supervisor, replacing the fired Ryan Grigson in 2017. He managed to be left at the altar by Josh McDaniels by hiring Frank Reich, and then signed a five-year contract extension through the 2026 season, the closest he has come to an 11-5 campaign in 2020. Despite the protests from Ballard, Irsay hired Jeff on Saturday as interim coach before Ballard helped ink Shane Steichen ahead of the 2023 season.
Since Ballard took over as general manager, the Texans, Titans and Jaguars have won the AFC South title at least twice. Ballard has yet to win it once.
Now, their career-defining draft pick has been benched, and their best-laid plan has long since gone awry.
