INDIANAPOLIS — Time is getting short for Anthony Richardson.
No matter what the Colts decide to do this offseason at the quarterback position.
Richardson has made only 15 professional starts, but he has now been in the NFL for two full seasons, meaning the clock has been ticking on the former No. 4 pick to prove he can develop into the franchise quarterback Indianapolis desperately needs.
Even though Colts owner Jim Irsay brought back general manager Chris Ballard and Shane Steichen for 2025, ensuring Richardson will still be playing for the two men who decided to bet their futures on the talented but raw quarterback who entered the NFL with precious little experience at Florida.
For years, those three men have been preaching patience with Richardson, a message that will likely continue this offseason, after Steichen likened the Richardson development process to a marathon near the end of the 2024 season.
“In Year 2, obviously, he made strides,” Steichen said. “I mean, he won us some games, he made some big-time plays. Did the first two years go the way that we wanted them? No, but it’s learning experience, it’s growth experience for him and everybody.”
Even marathons come to an end eventually.
The reality of the NFL is that pressure is building on Richardson, pressure that goes beyond Irsay’s acknowledgement that there are Colts fans who want immediate change to the direction of the organization, although that’s the heaviest weight falling on Richardson’s shoulders.
Richardson is headed into his third season in the NFL, and as a first-round pick, Indianapolis will have to decide next offseason if the team plans to pick up his fifth-year option, a decision that guarantees his salary in 2026 and 2027.
A team declining the fifth-year option does not spell the end of a quarterback’s time there; for example, the Packers opted to negotiate an extension with Jordan Love rather than pick up the option, and Love is now clearly Green Bay’s franchise quarterback.
Richardson is going to have to make major strides in 2025 to make the fifth-year option a difficult decision.
Faced with a mostly lost rookie season due to a shoulder injury Richardson was unable to quiet any of the major concerns about his game in his second season. Richardson missed four games due to two separate injuries, a hip/oblique injury suffered against Pittsburgh and a “disc issue” in his back. He was benched for two games because Steichen needed him to pay better attention to detail.
Maybe most importantly, Richardson appeared to take a step back as a passer, completing just 47.7% of his passes, the lowest for any NFL quarterback with more than 200 attempts since Tim Tebow in 2011.
Richardson’s struggles, both as a passer and his ability to stay on the field, limited an Indianapolis offense that ranked 8th in the NFL in rushing yards but finished 17th in scoring, largely because of a passing game that finished 25th in yards, 31st in interception rate and 31st in quarterback rating.
“We’ve got to be more consistent throwing the football moving forward,” Steichen said.
If Richardson is again the starter, the responsibility for a better passing attack will fall largely on his shoulders.
And Steichen left open the possibility that Richardson will have to compete for his job, saying that was one of the conversations the coach would have with Ballard this offseason.
“I love competing, so if the team feels like that's the right direction we want to go in, I'm all for it,” Richardson said. “I can't really control everything that comes with the NFL, but I know I can control what I can, and I'm going to do my part to be the best version of myself for this organization."
How he plans to get better is going to be key.
Richardson needs to make major strides, although Steichen declined to outline specific areas for improvement, citing a desire to evaluate the season before having a conversation with the quarterback. Richardson plans to split his time between Jacksonville and Indianapolis; he will continue to work with Six Points, a Jacksonville-based group of throwing coaches that helped train him for the NFL season.
From the sounds of it, though, the opportunity to spend a healthy offseason working on his throwing mechanics is not the only piece of Richardson’s game that needs improvement.
A shift in his mindset already had to take place during the season, and it sounds like Richardson needs to apply it to the offseason.
“Being intentional, honestly,” Richardson said. “Sometimes you do something for so long, it's like, okay, that's routine, that's natural. When you know, like, ‘OK, I can do that with my eyes closed.’ But to get better, I feel like you have to be intentional about every single thing you're doing, every minute of the day. You can't just let it fly by because you've been doing it for so long. … That's something I definitely learned about this year.”
Richardson often plays with joy when he’s on the field in games or practices.
But the NFL world is also about the preparation and the little things during the week, a lesson Richardson had to learn to return to the starting lineup, according to the starting quarterback. An enormous amount of work goes into the way a quarterback plays on Sunday, and 39-year-old backup Joe Flacco alluded to that work when he was asked what advice he’d give Richardson heading into the offseason.
“I think when you get into this world, there's times when things aren't going perfectly where it can become a profession. … There are times where it can feel like a job,” Flacco said. “I think what I would say is find ways to remind yourself, or find little things to look at and do that remind you that this isn't a job. This is so much more than that. It's such a special thing that we get to do.”
For Richardson, that boils down to being intentional.
“Whether that's footwork drills, studying film, studying the playbook or just being in the building, you know, talking to Shane – communication,” Richardson said. “Just everything, just being intentional, trying to have an end goal to everything.”
Richardson knows the pressure is coming.
Indianapolis has been trying to give its young quarterback time and space to develop, but the lesson of the 2024 season, from the benching to the way the season ended with questions swirling about the franchise’s future, should have brought home the urgency of the situation.
“Honestly, people are going to expect more, you know?” Richardson said. “I expect more out of myself, honestly. Obviously, we fell short this past season, especially with not making it to the playoffs, but I feel like I could have done a lot more. I could have done a lot more in the building, outside of the building – just in my life, just to be a better player.”
The Colts need Richardson to be a much better quarterback going forward.
And they’re running out of time to wait.
