Anthony Richardson is regressing, and the Colts need to find new solutions

It’s 2nd and 23 late in the third quarter of the divisional tilt between the Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans, with Houston holding a 10-point lead. Second-year signal caller Anthony Richardson takes off under pressure, fights off a sack attempt before eventually being brought down by another Texans defender for no gain.

Then, Richardson … subs himself out? Because he was tired?

It’s a brutal moment of honesty and bluntness from a quarterback who put up one of his worst performances of his young career. Richardson went 10-32 for 175 yards, threw a touchdown and a pick, was sacked four times and only had six carries in the Colts’ 23-20 loss on Sunday. It was a loss that made Colts fans and general NFL fans re-examine what exactly we have in Richardson at this point in his career. For a team with playoff aspirations such as the Colts, the loss pushed them to 4-4 with games against the Minnesota Vikings, Buffalo Bills, Denver Broncos and Detroit Lions left on the schedule. Each of those teams with formidable defenses that could make life miserable for the young signal caller.

However, before we move forward we have to ask: what’s gone wrong in Richardson’s second year? Why hasn’t it all clicked yet?

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Let me start off by saying this: at this point in his career, Richardson has only played in 10 NFL games and finished only eight of them due to injury. Since his second year in college at the University of Florida, Richardson has only started 23 games since leaving high school. This is still a passer who needs reps and time to figure out some of the finer points of playing quarterback.

The thing that was the most tantalizing about Richardson coming out of college was his process, as odd as it may sound for a guy with limited starts. It looked like he knew where the ball was supposed to go and his head was in the right place. The footwork made the results not always look pretty, but you could at least see the vision. In limited reps during his rookie year, you could see the vision and idea of what he could be as a passer. Ripping passes down the seam to slot receivers, the powerful and explosive running style—it was all there, and another year of just getting reps would aid in the growth that he would make.

However, eight games into the 2024 season, the problem has become clear: the results not always adding up have messed with Richardson’s process, and that’s where we enter the danger zone. Richardson doesn’t have nearly as much faith in what he’s seeing compared to where he was last year and it’s bringing down the offense as a whole. Richardson is 30th among all qualifying quarterbacks in Success Rate, putting him only in front of Spencer Rattler and Deshaun Watson. This means the offense is barely finding any successful plays when Richardson is dropping back to pass, and if you tack on an NFL-leading 13.1 Average Depth of Target and an NFL-worst -14.6 Completion Percentage over Expected, you get a pretty easy picture of what’s going wrong in Indy’s passing offense: Richardson is taking all of these throws downfield, but is also not hitting on those as often as you’d like. This is a problem because you can offset some of the inefficiencies in the short game as a passer by being one of the best deep ball passers in the league, but neither are really hitting for the Colts this year.

Part of why I think that’s happening is because Richardson isn’t trusting his process. As I said earlier, in his first starts and even early in this season you could see the why behind the passes he threw, or at least some of the steps he took in his head behind them. The idea of seeing him go from 1 to 2 to 3 gave some hope in the idea of what he could become as a passer. However, on Sunday it was one of his worst games as a processor because he just looked so unsure of himself.

On this play, a third and long, he knows he’s got wide receiver AD Mitchell on a deep curl route at the top of the screen. The Texans are in single high coverage, and Richardson can pick a side he wants to attack. He gets his eyes to Mitchell, goes to throw the ball, then…hesitates. The anticipation he used to flash isn’t there, so he double clutches, giving the pressure time to get there and he ends up throwing it short.

These issues popped up a lot for Richardson on Sunday, where you can see the wheels firing for Richardson, but when it’s time to throw he just hesitates, waiting for the guy to be open instead of throwing him open. It’s an alarming trait, one that’s really holding he and the Colts’ offense back.

Now, on Sunday there was a lot of bad from everyone in the skill position group. There were at least six drops over the course of the game, including a Tyler Goodson drop on one of Richardson’s best throws of the day, and an early one to Mitchell where he can’t get his feet inbounds. Just a bad day for Murphy’s Law to go into effect.

I think the drops and just inaccurate play for Richardson have taken an effect on his confidence. You can see him tensing up before throwing, not playing with any anticipation. The red flags are showing up in bunches, and the danger zone is getting closer.

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So, what can Colts’ head coach Shane Steichen do to help Richardson regain some of his confidence as a passer and get sustainable play from his QB? Well, I think he has to borrow more from his time in Philadelphia and truly unleash Richardson as a runner.

I know Richardson has dealt with some injuries, but only having six carries in a game is a big problem. The best versions of the Colts are where Richardson maybe drops back 20-25 times in a game—not him throwing the ball 32 times. It’s why you built a powerful run game, it’s why you paid Jonathan Taylor all that money. Lean into his ability on the ground, do more designed QB runs for him to get Richardson in the flow of a game. Hurts and Richardson are both on the bigger side as QBs (Richardson is much faster, however), and using them as a plus one in the run game should help the offense create some matchup and numbers problems on the perimeter.

Which brings up the next potential solution: the best thing about Hurts in the Eagles’ offense is that it didn’t ask him to make any complex reads. The best version of Hurts would have to move maybe one defender or throw the ball downfield to WRs AJ Brown and Devonta Smith. While the Colts don’t have those same caliber of receivers, getting Richardson to keep taking those shots downfield while maximizing his ability as a runner should help put the offense in a bind. Of course, it’s reliant on Richardson’s health, but the Colts drafted him because of his plus one ability as a runner, and they can’t neuter that part of their offense, because of how much his legs play a role in their success.

The Colts are at a major inflection point in their franchise. The QB who was supposed the be the franchise hasn’t played well, and patience is wearing thin. I still think Richardson can be a good NFL QB, but if the scar tissue we saw on Sunday continues into the end of the season, hard questions will have to be asked.