The Indianapolis Colts may have just wrecked their season before it started. I understand wanting consistency, but that doesn't always mean things will consistently be good. Take Daniel Jones, for example.
Yes, we've written endlessly about the Colts' decision to bench their inconsistent one-time wunderkind Anthony Richardson. More will be coming with every game this season; you can rely on that. If Jones plays well, it will be something, "just wait and see." If he stinks on ice - I love that phrase - it might get a bit savage.
It's a no-win situation for head coach Shane Steichen and general manager Chris Ballard. To be sure, both of these are self-inflicted wounds. Ballard made a complete fool of himself in Wednesday's press conference. He insisted that AR5 has a future with the Colts, and at the same time said with a straight face that Richardson could learn a lot from watching Danny Dimes for a full season. Yikes.
The Indianapolis Colts have hamstrung their offense in multiple ways with Jones
Steichen is no stranger to handling personnel decisions in the worst possible way. You'd think he would have learned from past mistakes. But here we are again. The fallout will be far worse this time. It isn't just the culture and the mood in the locker room that will be affected. The play on the field will take a direct hit as well.
The deep passing game will be restricted
Yes, Daniel Jones is a far more accurate passer than Anthony Richardson. He has a career completion percentage of 64.1 percent. That's a massive upgrade above Richardson's 50.6 percentage. Of course, when your average depth of target is just 7.3 yards compared to 11.1, you'd better be completing more passes.
And that's the crux of the issue. I'm not saying that Richardson is the better quarterback now. But all things considered, he isn't worse. He's attempted 348 passes in his NFL career; that's not exactly a lot of work. He's woefully mediocre in the short and medium ranges.
Pro Football Focus (subscription required) grades him at 50.8 and 54.3, respectively. Yeah, that's awful. Yet he graded out at 90.3 on passes over 20 yards. He's Jayden Daniels on deep throws and Spencer Rattler on the res.
Meanwhile, Jones is just "meh" no matter what. But he's less "meh" the shorter he throws. His grades at short, medium, and long range: 77.0, 74.0, 68.0. In other words, at passes under nine yards, he's a decrepit Aaron Rodgers. Going deep, he's barely Caleb Williams. So you can see why he keeps his targets close to the line of scrimmage.
Jonathan Taylor will be under more pressure than ever
So what happens when the Colts keep throwing short passes? The defense is far more likely to crowd the line. Who are you going to worry about beating you, the dink and doink quarterback with one good season out of six? Or are you going to stack the line to make sure the stud with 1,400 yards rushing last season doesn't get a chance to reach the open field?
No need to worry about those deep routes, either. Jones isn't likely to even try them, as barely 10 percent of his attempts were over 20 yards. Meanwhile, 21 percent of Richardson's attempts went deep. Even when he didn't connect - and he connected far more often than Jones - that deep threat gave Taylor a substantial cushion.
Expect more pressure on the O-line as well
This is going to put more pressure on the offensive line than ever. Sure, Steichen and Colts OC Jim Bob Cooter can game plan for quick passes. Nothing like taking part of your playbook away and restricting your own offense, right?
Indianapolis has lost both center Ryan Kelly and guard Ryan Fries to the Vikings this offseason. Hopefully, their replacements, Tanor Bortolini and Matt Goncalves, will hold up. But neither played as well as the former Colts last season.
Are there advantages to the safer game of Jones over the high-risk, high-reward game of Richardson? Sure, there are. But those could all be easily counteracted by the lack of explosion from such a pedestrian offense. I'm not looking for a great year from this offense at all.