In 2012 the Indianapolis Colts drafted a 23 year old Andrew Luck and handed him the keys to the offense. Watching Luck that season was an absolute treat. He was a rookie, sure, but he was ready for the moment. He was a complete player with all kinds of high level college experience that was not only ready for the challenge of starting for an NFL team, he was ready to carry that team from day one. See, the 2012 Colts were not a good football team. They had Reggie Wayne a rookie TY Hilton and... not a lot else. The defense gave up 24 points per game and sported the 29th ranked rushing defense. The 2012 Indianapolis Colts were a bad team. But Andrew Luck through nothing more than sheer force of will, pulled that team to 11 wins and a playoff berth in his rookie season. Because he had to.
A year ago, the Indianapolis Colts drafted a 20 year old Anthony Richardson and handed him the keys to the offense. But this time it was going to be different. We all know what happened last season and we don’t need to rehash it, but all offseason we put all of our eggs in the “Anthony Richardson is coming back” basket. They brought everyone back and hardly brought anyone in from outside and the reasoning was absolutely because they believed Richardson would be the difference. And that was reasonable. He was (is) better than Gardner Minshew and the team won 9 games and was a dropped fourth down pass away from going to the playoffs, so why wouldn’t Richardson be the difference? And that was the team’s mindset all offseason.
Now through two games it sure feels like Shane Steichen was so focused on “Anthony’s coming back” that he forgot what got him to 9 wins a season ago. Defensively we were all, and I mean every single one of us were worried about the secondary, no one was worried about the teams ability to stop the run. The week two games aren’t finished yet but with confidence I can tell you the Colts will have the 32nd ranked rushing defense in the league after this week.
Through two games the 2024 Indianapolis Colts have been a bad football team. There are some differences from 2012 and 2024. Notably Anthony Richardson’s offensive line is lightyears better than anything Luck had until 2018. Luck also never played with a running back like Jonathan Taylor.
What has been the same between 2012 and 2024 is that the team has relied on it’s young quarterback to be the driving force to winning them games. The problem is that Andrew Luck was the best quarterback prospect since John Elway. He was as pro ready as anyone has ever been. He played in every kind of game in college you could have ever wanted and Anthony Richardson, for all of the things he is, is none of those things.
Anyone who watched Richardson’s college tape (and knew what they were looking at) would have told you that he was tremendously talented, that he was very inexperienced and if he reaches his potential he has a chance to be unlike any player who has ever played. Then in the next breath they would tell you that whoever drafted him would need to be patient and expect to have to live through a lot of growing pains.
The 2024 Colts were supposed to be set up to endure those growing pains. If Richardson had a bad day, that was going to be okay. He had a top five offensive line, an all-pro running back a very talented receiving corps and a defense that if nothing else was going to stop the run and rush the passer. But so far his coach hasn’t made great use of that running back, his talented receiving corps is dropping passes and that defense is ensuring that if he doesn’t put together a scoring drive every time he touches the ball, there’s a chance he’s only going to get a few chances to score per game.
All of a sudden, it sure feels like the 2024 Indianapolis Colts are putting it all on a quarterback that we all knew couldn’t be relied upon to carry a team. And the thing is, yeah, he played poorly. Just like everyone said he would. He had a bad day in his 19th start since his high school career ended, in his second road game ever, in Lambeau Field of all places, in a game where his team was expected to go in and win easy after hearing how great he was all week because he hit a few massive highlight throws.
He is still the youngest starting quarterback in the NFL. He is still wildly inexperienced. There will be days like this. What we really, really need is to have a team that shows up when the kid does the thing we all expect and plays like a kid who hasn’t played very much. Eventually, these bad moments (games) should happen less and less and if we’re in the middle of next season and it doesn’t seem like there is growth, then fine, we can have that conversation. For now, we just need the rest of the team to realize that Anthony isn’t a savior.
Not yet.
In my opinion this was the best play of the game:
If you’re wondering why I’m posting a failed Hail Mary that was intercepted well short of the goal line, it has nothing to do with the result of the play and it has everything to do with what this play represents:
The other thing we were all worried about this season was whether or not Anthony Richardson could stay healthy. With that intercepted pass, Richardson has now finished two complete games in a row. I would take a healthy quarterback I believe in over a week two non-conference win on the road any day. But I wish I didn’t feel like I had to pick between the two options.
