The Indianapolis Colts begin training camp next week, giving players one final shot before preseason to win a job, compete for backup positions, or simply make the final 53-man cut. Position battles are one of the most intriguing aspects of NFL training camps, and for several Colts players, the pressure is on.
One key position group that has pressure all over is at quarterback. Daniel Jones will be the starter; that much is certain. What he does this season will determine the Colts' season as a whole, and possibly his future within Indianapolis. Anthony Richardson and Riley Leonard fall in behind Jones, and each of them has their own training camp pressures to face.
The only real position battle in the Colts quarterback room is between Richardson and Leonard, but that doesn't mean Jones doesn't have anything to prove. The question is, of the three of them, which Colts quarterback will be under the most pressure during training camp?
Anthony Richardson's NFL future will remain a storyline during the Indianapolis Colts' training camp
The pressure on Jones is simply summarized by what he looks like after recovering from his Achilles tear last season, and whether he resembles the quarterback who was a league leader up until that season-ending injury.
The Colts will be relying heavily on Jones to be that same quarterback they saw last year, and while training camp isn't a real game, the pressure on Jones to show he can bounce back will be high.
That being said, Jones' starting position is safe, so there is no pressure on him to beat out his backups. Which is where Richardson and Leonard come into the picture. The Colts haven't seen much of Riley in a regular-season game, but the fact that there is a real position battle between him and Richardson either says a lot about Leonard or a lot about Richardson, for different reasons.
For Leonard, the pressure on him to beat out Richardson is real, only because he has a legitimate chance to achieve that goal. Leonard may not even need to beat out Richardson, because Richardson might beat out himself, which also has a legitimate chance of happening.
That's why the Colts' quarterback under the most pressure at training camp is the former first-round draft pick, whose first two seasons in the league did not go well. After the Colts brought in Jones last year, it pushed Richardson back to the point where he may have already lost his starting job in Indianapolis for good.
Richardson's pressure is not necessarily about him proving to the Colts he can regain his starting quarterback spot, but about proving he can at least beat out Leonard, play directly behind Jones, and, throughout the 2026 season, have other teams' eyes on him as a backup for hopefully another shot at a job in the future.
Right now, Richardson's future as an NFL quarterback is in question. If he can win the backup job over Leonard, that's a good step forward. All Richardson has to do in training camp is not give it away.
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