Standing 6'4″ and nearly 250 lbs., Indianapolis Colts second-year quarterback Anthony Richardson is a specimen to behold even in a league that's full of them. Touted as one of the best pure athletes to ever play the quarterback position — a distinction that was backed up by off the charts scores at the NFL Scouting Combine — it may appear to the naked eye that Richardson would be invincible, but his rookie season proved otherwise.
In just his second career start in Week 2 last year, Anthony Richardson was knocked out of action with a concussion. He missed one game, returned in Week 4, and then saw his season end in the Colts' Week 5 matchup versus AFC South division rival Tennessee Titans when he suffered a grade three AC joint sprain in his right shoulder on a first-and-10 designed run.
The Colts will continue to use Anthony Richardson as a runner. They'd be foolish not to. You don't select someone who is built like him and moves like him and try to make him into a pocket passer. The days of Peyton Manning are long gone in Indy. But Colts head coach Shane Steichen does have hopes that Richardson's running style and mentality will become a little more cautious moving forward.
“I mean, it’s just being smart on when to get down,” Shane Steichen told Albert Breer of SI.com. “It’s a happy medium. There’s a time and a place where it’s fourth down and you gotta have it and the game’s on the line, where you gotta go get it. But if it’s first-and-10 and you scramble and you can make it second-and-4 and take a big hit or make it second-and-6 and get down, ‘Hey, let’s make it second-and-6.'”
Putting Shane Steichen's advice to good use is the next practical step for Anthony Richardson's evolution in the NFL, and it should be no means be a badge of dishonor for Richardson to more regularly run out of bounds or get down instead of fighting for an extra yard or two. It's about survival, and even though the Colts nearly made the postseason last year without Richardson for the final 12 games of the season, that won't be the case every year.
What to expect from Anthony Richardson, Colts in 2024
After allowing Gardner Minshew to walk in free agency this spring, Anthony Richardson will now be backed up by Joe Flacco, a Super Bowl MVP over a decade ago who came in as the 4th starting quarterback in Cleveland last year, surprisingly leading the Browns to the postseason. We've seen Joe Flacco go on heaters before, but ask anyone in Indianapolis if they want to see Joe Flacco — or anyone besides Anthony Richardson, for that matter — taking meaningful snaps this season, and the answer would be a resounding and unanimous “No.”
The Colts' ceiling is dictated by Richardson, who has the traits to emerge as one of the most dynamic quarterbacks in the league as soon as this year if things go right. The immediate success that CJ Stroud found in Houston gives the Colts good reason to expect the same of Richardson in 2024.
But with Houston re-loading in a major way with the additions of Stefon Diggs and Joe Mixon, and the rest of the AFC looking just as competitive as it was last year, the Colts will have an uphill battle in order to make their first postseason appearance since 2020.
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