Like a few members of the Colts’ top leadership, 3rd-year quarterback Anthony Richardson is facing a ‘make-or-break’ 2025 campaign.
According to NFL.com’s Jeffrl Chadiha, the Indianapolis Colts’ burning question this offseason is whether ‘this will be the end of the road’ for incumbent starting quarterback Anthony Richardson:
Indianapolis Colts
BURNING QUESTION: Is this the end of the road for Anthony Richardson?
It doesn’t look great for him. The Colts signed Daniel Jones to a one-year deal to compete with Richardson for the starting job next season. Colts GM Chris Ballard said the competition will make everybody better, which seems like another way of saying his third-year quarterback had better step up. That would be a fair approach, because it would be understandable for the Colts to have concerns about how a quarterback selected fourth overall in the 2023 NFL Draft is going to fare after two disappointing seasons. Richardson missed 13 games with injuries as a rookie and then was benched in Weeks 9 and 10 of last season. His career completion percentage sits at 50.6 percent. He also has thrown 11 touchdown passes and 13 interceptions in 15 total NFL games. This is why Jones, who fell to third on the Giants’ depth chart before being released by New York last season, is considered a real option for Indianapolis. If Jones can just be steady, that could be enough to keep Richardson on the bench for good.
After bringing in veteran free agent Daniel Jones, the Colts have proclaimed publicly that it will be an open offseason competition between Richardson and the former New York Giants castoff for the starting quarterback job in Indianapolis.
While it still remains in the Colts franchise’s best interests for Richardson to win the job outright on the merits, it’s anyone’s guess whether he can hold off the top challenger Jones for the QB1 title throughout this year’s training camp and the preseason.
Since being the 4th overall pick of the 2023 NFL Draft, the Colts haven’t handled AR’s initial development arguably all that gracefully.
First, the team brought in Gardner Minshew during Richardson’s rookie year as offseason quarterback competition, but the expectation was always that the former Florida Gator standout would ultimately win the job. The Colts’ stance was that having been limited to just 13 starts with the Gators collectively, Richardson needed the NFL game day reps.
After a tantalizing initial debut, Richardson was limited to just 4 starts during his rookie campaign because of a season-ending shoulder injury.
While there were high hopes entering his 2nd-year in 2024—fully recovered and after such a promising start to his pro career, Richardson endured a sophomore slump that seemingly reached its boiling over point during his infamous Week 8 ‘tap-out’ against the Houston Texans—which cost the 22-year-old starter, who still needed the reps, a 2-game benching (*although it would’ve been indefinitely if veteran Joe Flacco hadn’t played so poorly).
After the presumed learning lesson, Richardson reportedly became more of a professional within the Colts building, showing up early, staying late, and ramping up his film study to better become the ‘CEO of W. 56th street.’ His play showed some improvement down the season’s stretch too, as following the benching, Richardson led the Colts to late game-winning drives—albeit against rather lackluster NFL competition.
He still needs to improve upon his consistency and especially his passing accuracy—which was just 47.7% last season. His availability also remains a concern, as still needing valuable game day reps, Richardson missed the Colts’ last two games because of further injury.
Jones doesn’t inspire much confidence, as he’s struggled from similar issues that Richardson has regarding his durability and turnover prone tendencies. Like Richardson, he does offer dual-threat mobility, and in a simulated practice setting, likely could look better with his passing accuracy, completing more shorter passes in rhythm.
The Colts have to use 2025 to truly see what they have with Richardson—both on and off the field, and whether there’s enough production and promise to continue with him as their franchise quarterback hopeful going beyond next year.