Colts bench Anthony Richardson; is it long-term? | Football 301
Yahoo Sports NFL analyst Nate Tice and fantasy analyst Matt Harmon discuss Anthony Richardson getting benched in Indy, if it’s a long-term decision, and what the future holds for the young QB. Hear the full conversation on “Football 301” - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
Anthony Richardson starting quarterback of the Colts, someone I've been high on is now benched officially for non injury reasons.
Not because, well, maybe tapping the helmet didn't help but is now benched for the elite Joe Flacco.
Well, first of all, let me say, uh, that as a non former NFL player, I am never gonna come in here and say like, actually all the former players that I see talking about, you know, tapout gate are overreacting.
I'm never gonna do that.
It clearly didn't sit well in the locker room.
You know, Ryan Kelly, who's the longest tenured colt, he is one of the veterans on that team.
He was asked about it in a press conference and, you know, he wasn't, you know, like throw Richardson under the bus, but he obviously said, like, that's not the standard.
He obviously said that that was something they had to talk about privately.
You hear that and then you hear in conjunction like Shane Sty and the next day come out and say that we are evaluating things.
When they say the E word, it means they're gonna a change.
That is pretty much always what's gonna happen it's also pretty much been reported by anybody that he is being benched for Sunday night against the Minnesota Vikings.
This is not as if, oh, we are turning to Joe Flacco for the rest of the season because in my mind it doesn't make sense to do that.
Like, ok, you're gonna, and I know NFL teams could be short sighted, especially this particular owner has done some short sighted things not too long ago.
Remember there's a guy on ESPN who coached the team for half of a year in Jeff's Saturday.
So it's not as if we haven't seen Jim Irsay make some impulsive decisions and maybe emotional decisions.
My initial gut instinct is this is probably a temporary move.
Uh But again, if Flacco plays well, it is gonna be hard to take him off the field to me.
It's, and a lot has been made about the completion percentage and I'm one of probably 50 people that had a Twitter thread about like look at all.
You gotta look at all the context with it.
Easy number to look at when it looks that comically low and looking at this offense which I, I still like and I like the downfield of tech because I think it's such an old school NFL.
T that I believe in, run the ball to attack underneath a few RP OS and then launch that ball and does it sometimes have some Los?
Yeah, because you're leaving yourself with a lot of meat on the bone or leaving, hey, it's all or nothing at times.
His expected completion percentage on non screens.
Him being anti Richardson, it's 57%.
So even if he was neutral, his completion percentage would be 57%.
So still that needs context about what it is.
This guy's gonna always need time.
It's a year three projection for him.
If this is just a band aid on a bullet hole for a couple of weeks.
Ok.
I understand that.