It only took one Colts practice to bring the Daniel Jones hype train to a screeching stop

The Indianapolis Colts saw training camp officially start today, and while there are many battles to watch out for, only one is the headliner, and that is the quarterback competition between Anthony Richardson and Daniel Jones. Every Colts fan is all-too-aware of how much Richardson has struggled in his first two seasons, and his time appears to be running out. Jones was brought in specifically to compete with him for QB1, with the rationale being it would either spur Richardson to improve, or give the Colts a more reliable starter for 2025.

With just a one-year contract and a less-than-stellar record himself, Jones is likely not a long-term solution for the Colts, but he also made it clear he came to Indianapolis for a reason. He wants to prove that he has what it takes to lead a team, and to fail now could very well sound the death knell for his career.

Thanks to an injury during OTAs, Jones gained an edge over Richardson throughout the summer, as he got all the reps to himself. His performance was highly praised by the team, and going into training camp, it seemed that QB1 was Jones' position to lose.

That might have all just come to a screeching halt.

Daniel Jones gets picked

Jones and Richardson alternated taking first-team reps, but one of the biggest triumphs of the day was from... well, Kenny Moore, who made a spectacular interception. That is far from what needed to happen to solidify Jones' position in the lead for this quarterback race.

Jones has been receiving a lot of buzz this summer, but the question is... why? His career has not been great, and as SI's Sean Ackerman pointed out, Jones has a lot of issues.

""When you think about that stat, you wonder what Ballard was really hoping for when he signed Jones. Those accuracy issues won't magically fix themselves. Nineteen quarterbacks have thrown 2000+ pass attempts since 2019, and among those 19 quarterbacks, Jones has the third-worst completion percentage (64.1%), the worst passer rating (84.3), the lowest touchdown percentage (3.1%), and the lowest passing yards per game (208.3).

To think that Jones' problems have been solved in three months of being with the Colts would be naive. Pairing an organization that has a bad track record of quarterbacks over the past decade with a quarterback who has failed to win games is a match made in hell.""

Sean Ackerman

It's not too much of a stretch to say, therefore, that seeing Jones immediately get picked in the first practice of training camp is a major problem. He was supposed to be the safe, reliable alternative to Richardson, the one with less upside but more stability. If he can't even provide that, then what point is there in making him QB1?

Same old issues, once again

While there is no denying that Richardson has problems on his own, there's also no denying that he had very little help last season, when the offense was plagued with drops left and right. Even when Richardson was performing well, he still had to contend with a league-high drop rate, which certainly didn't help his completion percentage.

So far, that seems to still be an issue - for now, anyway.

With Tyler Warren on board, the hope was that there would be more reliable weapons for both Richardson and Jones to utilize. It's only the first day of training camp, of course, but it's certainly not the start anyone likely wanted to see.

Anthony Richardson comes out swinging

In addition to seemingly performing better than Jones during training camp, Richardson had individual practice yesterday. And, dare we say... he didn't look bad?

Reporting from training camp did indicate that there were some incomplete passes from Richardson today, but there were also quite a few drops. What that will mean for the future is yet to be seen, but so far, this appears to be an encouraging update for those hoping to see Richardson take the field on Week 1.

Richardson made it clear that he was taking the competition seriously in the offseason, working with a biometric specialist and training in Florida before his shoulder was injured again. One practice at training camp is not enough to make any kind of definitive call, but it is enough to say that those hyping Jones up as the definitive winner of this contest need to sit down.

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