"I'm afraid it's beyond repair."
Heading into the 2025 NFL season, the quarterback situation for the Indianapolis Colts seems to be far from a sure thing. And this has Around the Horn panelist Kevin Clark questioning whether the partnership between the Colts and Anthony Richardson will work out.
Last season, the Colts benched Richardson in favor of Joe Flacco for a two-game stretch after Richardson was seen tapping his helmet, another way of asking out of the game, during a key moment of their Week 8 game against the Houston Texans.
Richardson received a lot of criticism for that act. But even his biggest critics had a hard time agreeing with how the Colts organization then handled their second-year quarterback.
Instead of chalking up Richardson’s moment as a mistake made by a young player and rallying behind him, Colts head coach Shane Steichen instead opted to leave Richardson completely in the dark as to how he wanted him to improve and grow from this moment, offering him no explanation as to why he was benched for Flacco.
Now, heading into 2025, it sounds as if the Colts aren’t willing to hand the keys back over to Richardson without going through an offseason competition for the starting job. On Tuesday, Colts GM Chris Ballard outlined the team’s plan to bring in another quarterback to battle with Richardson for the starting job.bungled
“They have answered every single question wrong since they drafted Anthony Richardson two years ago,” said Clark. “They have bungled the situation and right now I’m afraid it’s beyond repair. You took one of the most athletic quarterbacks we have ever seen at the combine. You let him play for a month. He gets hurt, you let him play for a month. When he gets healthy, you bench him for Joe Flacco, who by the way was supposed to steady the ship. He steadied nothing. And then all of the sudden you say we’re going to bring in another guy.
“You have to give someone like Anthony Richardson a long runway to develop. They haven’t done that. All of the sudden, Chris Ballard and Shane Steichen are trying to save their jobs. They are trying to get a veteran in right now. For me, that would be someone like Justin Fields if I had to choose. But I just think this was the wrong situation from the get go. Anthony Richardson was failed. That doesn’t mean he is a great quarterback. But he was failed in this situation. The whole thing is a football tragedy. The whole thing is football malpractice.”
It’s hard to argue with anything Clark said here. Instead of giving Richardson all of the resources to grow as a player, the Colts have instead jumped at every opportunity to undermine him by bringing in other quarterbacks to play over him.
Perhaps Richardson can overcome all of this and again earn the starting job heading into 2025. But unless the Colts organization gives him the tools to succeed, this could very well be a what-if situation that gives Colts fans headaches for years to come.
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