Anthony Richardson can't rise to a Colts standard that doesn't presently exist

INDIANAPOLIS – Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson dropped back from his own 11-yard line, spotted his tight end drifting between layers of zone coverage and fired a ball straight to him – between the numbers, in the web of two gloved hands, shaded away from the nearest defender.

And Drew Ogletree dropped it.

Richardson was so sure he had a touchdown that he was high-kneeing to the sideline to celebrate. And when he saw the ball bounce lifeless to the turf, he flipped his head back and smiled.

Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from screaming.

That had just happened, too, on the Colts first drive of the game, after Richardson drove them inside the 10 and faced a third-and-6. He dropped back out of shotgun, waiting for a route from Adonai Mitchell to develop in the end zone, only for Za’Darius Smith to spin Quenton Nelson around like a top and throw his 270-pound frame into the lap of the 22-year-old quarterback.

Richardson had just enough time to stand tall and sail the throw out of the end zone before crashing onto his back on the turf. But after running back Jonathan Taylor lifted him back up, he let out a ferocious scream with an intense stare at the offensive line.

“I knew we were in the red zone,” Richardson said after his team lost 24-6 to Detroit, “and we just didn't finish.”

Instead, those two red-zone possessions created an easy line in the sand of where a game against the high-flying Lions would be lost.

It was so easy to see that it left a quarterback screaming and laughing just to drown the pain.

This game was supposed to be an encore to what happened just seven days ago in New York, when Richardson returned from a two-week benching and played the game of his life to ignite his first fourth-quarter comeback victory. After the two most humiliating weeks in his life, Richardson suddenly had a buffet of positives to build on from a 20-for-30 performance.

He was, at long last, the young quarterback this team wanted to see, both in play and demeanor, in consistency and in confidence.

And he was much the same player on Sunday against the Lions. Only it’s hard to see through the box score when he finishes 11 of 28, and it’s hard to justify through the results of a home drubbing by the Lions.

But it's reality on a day with a season-high 75 penalty yards and on an afternoon where he took six hits from Lions defenders without a single sack.

“I don’t think the penalties were negating his incompletions," wide receiver Alec Pierce said. "It was a lot of completions and a lot of good balls that got called back, so I’m sure his stats are not really reflective of how he played and threw the ball.”

They weren't, but it can happen in a sport like football, known as the ultimate team game. The Lions are a showcase to that, as they have revived Jared Goff's career after the Rams gave up on him by sparking his confidence and supporting him with the league's best offensive line, with a reigning 800-yard tight end in Sam LaPorta and a reigning 1,500-yard wide receiver in Amon-Ra St. Brown and two running backs in Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery who already combine for 21 touchdowns on the young season.

It takes two to tango, and for as young as Richardson is, he understood that early on.

"I can definitely get better and delivering the ball and helping my guys up. But I also can't catch every pass," Richardson said at the NFL Scouting Combine, months before the Colts drafted him. "If I could, I would, definitely. But it's also helping guys out and helping guys help me."

It's not a quarterback line to say, especially not at this level, where that position serves as a CEO of a billion-dollar franchise. The benching was all about getting him to learn those realities a little bit more, to spend two weeks in the dark while a nation pounded him for professionalism and focus, all so he could eventually emerge and rise to the standard of those around him.

But that standard never arrived on Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium. Some of the issues were new, such as the penalties that wiped out a number of strong plays, such as a 21-yard completion to Kylen Granson, a 7-yard first-down conversion to Josh Downs and a 30-yard explosive gain to Downs, all called back.

“A lot of our explosive plays got called back," Downs said. "The game probably wouldn’t have gone like that if we get those explosive plays.”

But they did, because the players on the Colts who are supposed to support Richardson were left blocking with hands to the face of defensive linemen or tackling rushers to the ground.

They dropped passes, from Ogletree's missed touchdown to an explosive gain where Ashton Dulin forgot to land his second foot in bounds. They didn't run around him, leaving his 61 yards on to carries to account for 64% of the team's rushing success. Taylor managed to find just 35 yards on 11 carries, marking the fewest yards he's had on double-digit carries in his career.

"I feel like we could have been a lot more physical out there," Richardson said. "I feel like we could have played a little bit more bully ball, to say the least."

They couldn't hold up in pass protection, asking him to throw the ball away with defenders draped at his waste, turning six quarterback hits into zero sacks. And they couldn't get open across the middle of the field, with three active tight ends combining for zero catches on only three targets.

For as much as the Colts have rightly asked Richardson to grow, they have failed to evolve enough with him. And it's left the rest of them where they started this season, by turning run-first personnel into a pass-happy attack without the base plays to build a rhythm.

And rhythm, as Michael Pittman Jr. pointed out, is just a synonym for confidence when it comes to a young quarterback.

"I think we can just expand and help him out by getting some easier completions," Pierce said. "It’s hard to throw the ball down the field. He has to take a deeper drop back. It’s harder on the O-line. I think we can help him out by getting more quick game stuff.”

Pierce is now the third Colts starting wide receiver to make public suggestions about running shorter routes to stay on the field and keep hits off of a quarterback who has missed 15 games to injury the past two seasons.

Pierce, Downs and Pittman have all made this point, but they're not the ones designing the offense.

Shane Steichen responded perfectly last week to the opportunity to install a new offense for Richardson's return that could be better suited to his quarterback's young state of mind and dual-threat abilities. The Colts ran the ball in that game on 20 of their first 27 plays and, though the run game didn't find overall success, it got Richardson to feel alive with two rushing touchdowns and minimized the risk of turnovers that had been eating their offense alive.

But the task was much taller this week, as it wasn't Aaron Rodgers and the Jets they had to keep pace with. This was the best offense in the NFL, and so when those red-zone possessions didn't find the end zone, the Colts knew they were going to have to make them back up.

All that led to was panic.

It came from Steichen, who called just one rushing play for Taylor in the entire second half. It came from his offensive line and tight ends and receivers, who couldn't make it through their best plays without committing penalties.

They were expected to be the poised ones, the older professionals who didn't lose their jobs when the offense went five straight weeks without scoring more than 20 points. But Sunday's return home only showcased the opposite of poise.

This was stress, over a unit not gelling, over looming questions without easy answers and over a season that's getting to be on the brink at 5-7.

The schedule lines up so that the Colts can, theoretically, go on a run to the playoffs. Only 7-5 Denver represents a difficult game on paper, with the other four games coming against teams from New England, Jacksonville, Tennessee and the New York Giants that are a combined 10-35.

But in the same way that Sunday against the Lions was theoretically an encore for a renewed quarterback and a newfound offensive identity, it's not the theories that win games. Ogletree was theoretically open and Smith theoretically blocked and Dulin theoretically ready for an explosive gain.

The Colts need solutions, not theories. And until they find some, their quarterback will be left wearing those frustrations, one sarcastic laugh and furious scream at a time.