Anthony Richardson, a promising 21-year-old quarterback who has thrown only 393 passes in 24 games in his college career, has been given the starting quarterback job for the Indianapolis Colts. This is a decision that is so stupid that it can hardly have been made by a football coach and thus is much more likely to have been made by a meddling owner like Jim Irsay.
Consider that since 1960, only two significant quarterbacks who have begun the season prior to their 22nd birthday have had winning records: David Woodley at 6-5 for the 1980 Miami Dolphins, and Lamar Jackson a 6-1. Other than that, all of the rest have been losers, and most have been terrible. To name a few, Fran Tarkenton made the Hall of Fame, but not because of his 2-8 rookie season at age 21. Some of the better rookie ledgers age at age 21 were posted by Bernie Kosar at 5-7; Drew Bledsoe, 5-7; Jameis Winston, 6-10; and Sam Darnold, 4-9, Josh Rosen, 3-10; Alex Smith, 2-5; and Matthew Stafford, 2-8. Deshone Kizer was in a class by himself at 0-16.
So, what are you teaching a young quarterback to do on a bad offense? If your team has trouble scoring points, the quarterback may well have to take chances to try score touchdowns that a better quarterback might not have to take. If you stay conservative on a bad offense, you may never score any points. Thus, the desperation heave into the end zone might actually be the best available option on a bad team. Similarly, “one read and run” may be all that there is time for on a bad team, but that is not winning football in the NFL. You are training the kid to be a bad quarterback. This is what awaits Anthony Richardson, in all probability.
However, a conservative young quarterback on a good team—say Brock Purdy—has a chance to be quarterbacking in the playoffs. That’s not the Colts. They went 4-12-1 last season, scoring 289 points, the 28th highest total out of 32 teams. Ouch. How much will they improve by replacing four-time Pro Bowler Matt Ryan with a raw rookie?
Football team owners usually have football IQs just about the same level as the average salamander. All they can think about is their bright shiny new quarterback performing immediately, convinced of box office success if not athletic greatness.
The Cleveland Browns are poster boys talk about Johnny Manziel, the son of a Texas oilman, who was drafted by the Cleveland Browns, a team owned by the son of a Tennessee oilman, who was advised by a homeless man on draft day, who seemed to be a harbinger of good luck. The coaching staff did not want to play Manziel, but the order came from above (ownership? God?) to sit down starter Brian Hoyer and start Manziel while the Browns still had a shot at the playoffs at 7-6. That disastrous change at quarterback led to a 7-9 record and knocked them out of the playoffs.
Just two years after Manziel was cut, the Browns chose Deshone Kizer, who should have stayed at Notre Dame for at least one more season if not two. However, Kizer made the poor decision to declare for the draft after his sophomore season after redshirting as a freshman. Of course, the Browns decided to start him immediately, just like the Colts plan to do to Anthony Richardson. Perhaps if Kizer had had a full season to learn the offense behind a veteran quarterback he might have had a chance, but the Browns cut all of their veteran quarterbacks to artificially create a sink-or-swim situation for him. Well, he sank. It clearly ruined him. He never un-learned the bad habits he acquired in Cleveland.
This is what awaits Richardson in Indianapolis. There are some brave words that perhaps he will be able to compensate for his inexperience as a passer because he has 4.43 Combine speed, and he is much bigger than Lamar Jackson at six-foot-four and 244 pounds. After all, he gained 1116 yards on the ground in his brief career! Well…Lamar Jackson is the greatest dual threat athlete in NFL history. Not sure that’s what the scouting reports actually said about Richardson after a season and a half at Florida where he had good-but-not-great stats. Jackson, after all, won a Heisman and had three full years as a starter (38 starts for Jackson versus 13 for Richardson).
Thus far in the preseason, Richardson has thrown 12 balls for 67 yards. That ought to be enough, right? We can only hope he has Deshone Kizer’s cell phone number. He will need someone to talk to.