Literally no one agrees with the Indianapolis Colts' decision to bench Anthony Richardson

The Indianapolis Colts sent shockwaves through the NFL after deciding to bench Anthony Richardson after just 10 NFL starts in favor of veteran quarterback Joe Flacco. While it's undeniable that Richardson has his on-field problems, not least of which was his embarrassing decision to tap out for a play because he was "tired," but the message from the Colts organization has, until now, been constant. Anthony Richardson is the future of this franchise. He simply needs to be given the time and reps to develop into the elite QB the Colts believe he can be.

Then, in a dizzying about-face, Richardson has been benched and his career in the NFL -- or, at the very least, with the Colts -- is likely over. Flacco, who is pushing 40, and will likely be gone after this season. The Colts may be able to claw their way into the playoffs as a wild card, but they are not serious contenders to make it to the Super Bowl, let alone win. And where will that leave this beleaguered team? In the same place they've been since Andrew Luck retired: without a franchise quarterback, mired in mediocrity, and no clue how to rebuild this team for long-term success.

By benching Richardson, the Colts have made it clear that their priority is a few wins right now as opposed to a better future for the franchise. And they're getting slammed for it in virtually every take from analysts around the league.

Ben Arthur, Fox Sports:

The Colts drafted Richardson knowing that he was a raw prospect who needed reps. The whole NFL world knew this. He started just 13 games at Florida, after all. He had the same accuracy issues in Gainesville that he’s shown in the league to this point. So to sit him after starting just 10 NFL games, after preaching to the public to have patience with him since last spring, looks asinine. We have to remember that Richardson lost valuable development time because of the shoulder injury that ended his rookie season prematurely, too. 

Indianapolis could’ve also prioritized doing more for him before pulling the plug. 

Steichen’s playcalling has been head-scratching at times this season — the Colts are throwing the ball more than they’re running it despite being built to run with a healthy Jonathan Taylor — and Indianapolis’ receivers haven’t helped. 

In Sunday’s loss to the Texans, running back Tyler Goodson dropped a wide-open touchdown. Rookie wide receiver Adonai Mitchell couldn’t keep two feet inbounds on another. There were other drops throughout the game, too. The Colts averaged 6.3 yards per carry against the Texans, but ran the ball just 26 times compared to 32 passes. 

Richardson needs to play better, but the surrounding cast hasn’t helped him. Indianapolis pass-catchers have a 7.1% drop rate, which ranks in the bottom half of the league this season (13th), according to Sportradar. 

...

Even if the Colts want to go back to Richardson at some point, framing this as an opportunity to learn and grow behind Flacco, the reality is that they’re pushing back the game development of a raw quarterback whose game development has constantly been pushed back since high school due to injury. His growth now looks like an afterthought. The franchise also has to grapple with how all this could impact the confidence of the 22-year-old Richardson, who had been the league’s youngest QB1 since last season. 

....

The Colts have opened a can of worms and there’s no going back. 

Gregg Doyel, Indianapolis Star:

The Colts just blew up the next two or three (or four or five) years, because on Tuesday owner Jim Irsay, coach Shane Steichen and general manager Chris Ballard have taken the greatest lump of clay in NFL quarterback history, a young quarterback from Florida named Anthony Richardson, and thrown him into the trash bin of time.

...

Are you like me? You tired of the Colts being surprised by their problems at quarterback?

So we blame Shane Steichen, for being unable to get through to Richardson. We blame Chris Ballard, for being unable to surround Richardson with enough firepower at receiver and tight end. We blame Jim Irsay, for being unwilling to open his checkbook and pay for Grade A pass-catching talent – overpay if you have to, for God’s sake – and hoping to make do with an average corps of receivers and a one-person running back room whose one person, Jonathan Taylor, is a known injury risk.


We blame all three – Irsay, Ballard, Steichen – for deciding Richardson was worth the No. 4 overall pick in 2023, rather than try to trade up for C.J. Stroud.


You blame all the people above Richardson, and you blame receiver Adonai Mitchell for dropping a handful of passes this season and chickening out on a handful of others. You blame Alec Pierce and Michael Pittman Jr. for routinely being unable to get open enough. You blame Taylor for dropping a handful of easy passes this season, and running back Tyler Goodson for dropping a touchdown pass. You blame the tight ends for … well, for doing whatever they’re doing. Because it’s not good enough.

...

Now the Colts enter their ninth game of the 2024 NFL season with a look we’ve seen way too often around here, with a mediocre team facing a massive hole at quarterback, and with the next year or two – or three or four – looking like more misery.

Kevin Bowen, WISH-TV Colts Insider:

What do you gain from a 39 year old Joe Flacco going out there? We’ve seen this song and dance before from the Colts. We saw with Gardner Minshew, Matt Ryan, Phillip Rivers, Jacoby Brissett, Carson Wentz and where has it got you? Right here, to this point where you’re still looking for the future at quarterback.

I think you stay patient with Richardson, see what he can do, and then if you have to make a bigger decision at the end of the season, so be it.

Ben Solak, ESPN:

The Flacco-led Colts lost to the then-winless Jaguars three weeks ago. Of course, Indianapolis' defense was the biggest culprit there. But I've got news for you: It's still the same defense. If you plug Flacco in for Richardson because of some misguided belief of playoff contention, you rob Richardson of even more reps. This was Richardson's 10th career start, for crying out loud! And it'd all probably just be for the chance to finish 10-7 with Flacco and get bounced in the wild-card round of the playoffs.

Flipping to Flacco right now might feel better because your quarterback posts fewer embarrassing stat lines, but there are no outs in a Flacco-led season. No positive-enough outcomes to save your team from collapse. He is 39 and maybe the 24th-best quarterback in football. The only world in which the Colts have a rosy 2025 and even 2026 outlook is the world in which Richardson hits as a successful young QB. And even if you believe there's next to no chance that outcome will exist, it's a better bet than drawing dead with Flacco. If Richardson is awful the rest of the way, Indy would be in the same place it'd be in if it started Flacco: without a quarterback of the future (but with a much better draft pick).

I don't know what went on with Richardson taking himself out for a play, but short of that issue, this is exactly the sort of player I'd want to hitch my wagon to. He makes all the high-difficulty plays you could ask for. He regularly saves the offense from bad pass protection and long down-and-distances. The snap-to-snap offense must be more consistent, but it's so much easier to take a naturally aggressive quarterback and force-feed him some layups than it is to take a risk-prone quarterback and teach him when and how to shoot. Matt LaFleur and the Packers have done this with Jordan Love. Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers did so with Brock Purdy. Even Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes, over time, have learned this.

Richardson was not as bad as you think he was on Sunday -- not nearly as bad. He doesn't play a style of football that is conducive to high completion percentages. Even if his wideouts had made plays in this game, he would have completed about 50% of his passes. It just would have been a win, and nobody would have screenshotted his box score for likes. (Something that we all do, to be very clear ... myself included!)

He has had far worse games this season (like the loss to the Packers) and bounced right back with better games the following week. If the Colts bail on him now, it would be one of the most perplexing and inexcusable abandonments of QB development that I can remember.

Joel Erickson, Indianapolis Star:

Flacco may be the better quarterback for the Colts this November.

The long-term implications of the team’s decision cannot be ignored. From the moment Indianapolis drafted Richardson, the organization’s stated belief has been that the best way to develop the young, inexperienced quarterback — Richardson was a starter at the collegiate level for just one season — has been to play him at the NFL level.

Steichen, Colts general manager Chris Ballard and Irsay have been aligned publicly on that strategy from the beginning.

By sending Richardson to the bench now, the team is changing course, not only in its plan to develop Richardson but potentially its plan for the future of the quarterback position in Indianapolis, a seismic decision that could have ramifications beyond the 2024 season.

Indianapolis may say that the Colts plan to go back to Richardson when he’s ready. In reality, NFL teams have rarely gone back to a young quarterback they have benched. According to an informal study by IndyStar, out of the 74 quarterbacks drafted in the first round since 2000, only two were drafted, inserted into the starting lineup, benched and then had any kind of sustained success with that team — Alex Smith with the 49ers and Rex Grossman with the Chicago Bears.

...

If Tuesday’s decision to bench Richardson ends up marking the end of the team’s investment in the Florida product as the team’s quarterback of the future, there could be similar franchise-altering decisions in the future.

Flacco, at the age of 39, can only be a bridge — the Colts may still hope he can be a bridge to Richardson, as unlikely as that may be, considering the NFL’s history — and a playoff push would leave Indianapolis without the high draft pick necessary to draft another young quarterback to develop.

A move away from Richardson would also force difficult questions about the organization’s chief decision-makers. Ballard, now in his eighth season as general manager, has long said that he’d likely be gone if he made a failed a first-round pick at quarterback; Steichen was hired, in part, because of his perceived ability to develop young quarterbacks on the fly.

Even if the Colts make the playoffs with Flacco at the helm, those questions will still remain.

Conor Orr, SI:

Cynicism is only helpful when it brings you toward realism. In the case of Indianapolis Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson, I have seen many thoughtful takes on a coach and a general manager, and a team’s responsibility toward a player, and the benefits of perhaps missing out on the playoffs so that he can develop, and the importance of stepping back and taking a broader look at the historical rawness of Richardson as a project.

...

I think Richardson needs to stack offseason reps, not just in-season reps. He needs to continue to surround himself with the right people and all the other clichés of growing and learning that you can think of. Eat, sleep and breathe football. Make it his life’s work. And so on. The fact that, after only a very small handful of college and professional games, he has shown such an outlier talent that the Colts were even thinking about letting this season slip away as grist for his long-term improvement is an amazing testament to what lies ahead. 

Unfortunately, none of that smooths the callous nature of the league that we’re in. Spend the season trying to develop Richardson and it doesn’t work? You’re the guys who didn’t develop Richardson and someone else will try to sell themselves as the person who will. Make the playoffs? You have time to be the guys who developed Richardson. Because, something we’ll all agree on amid all of this? There’s no quick and easy fix. 

Destin Adams, A to Z Sports:

Many are banging the table for Joe Flacco to start because he "gives the team the best chance to win games." But I urge fans and those that cover the NFL who have this sentiment to realize that this Colts team isn't a Joe Flacco away from winning the Super Bowl. So even if Flacco adds a win or two to the Colts this season (which I'm honestly not sure about either), is it really a better option than allowing your 22-year-old QB, who is essentially a rookie on the field, to play through his struggles and give you a full season of tape to study and decide if he is the answer long term?

To me, the answer is a clear no, and I have a hard time seeing the Colts coaching staff or front office make that decision. So to those rumors I say, I'll believe it when I see it. But if they do indeed bench him, I think head coach Shane Steichen and general manager Chris Ballard will be signing their own firing notices, as both would likely be fired in the near future as a result of closing the book on Richardson so prematurely. 

Jordan Dajani, CBS Sports:

If the Colts want to win right now, then Flacco is the better quarterback, yes. In the three total games with two starts he filled in for Richardson this season, the reigning Comeback Player of the Year completed 65.7% of his passes for 716 yards, seven touchdowns and just one interception. But are the 4-4 Colts trying to contend this year, or develop the quarterback they believe could be the face of the franchise? That's not a rhetorical question either. Jim Irsay probably wants to win right now, but Richardson is a young player who hasn't even started a full 10 games! 

Richardson has made just 23 career starts across his college and NFL career. His 13 starts in college were tied with Mitchell Trubisky for the fewest by a first-round pick QB since 2000. We all knew Richardson was a raw prospect that needed time to develop, which is why I wasn't anticipating this decision right now. What does this do for his confidence? What does it do for his development?

Whatever Colts decision-makers saw on tape or have noticed in the locker room, they clearly believe Richardson could benefit from a soft reset. We haven't even made it through the first chapter of the "Anthony Richardson story," which is why benching him right now is surprising.