The Indianapolis Colts have made their bed, and now they have to set it on fire. The risk of making Daniel Jones the team's starting quarterback is great. While head coach Shane Steichen and general manager Chris Ballard's decision might not be wise, there are ways to make it better.
Besides the obvious on-field potential problem of Jones playing much like he did in his first six seasons when he was with the New York Giants, Steichen and Ballard could lose the locker room, too. Jones was picked to be QB1 over Anthony Richardson, and AR5 is entering his third year with the team.
One could easily argue that trading Richardson, whom the team has clearly given up on, whether they admit as much publicly or not, would dismiss any locker room issues that might surface by Week 8. If Indy starts poorly, fans are not going to be the only ones wanting a QB change. Players will too.
ESPN NFL analyst projects the Colts to trade Anthony Richardson to the Steelers
ESPN's Bill Barnwell has an idea of what the Indianapolis Colts could do with Richardson. Indy could deal the quarterback to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Richardson would still sit for a season with the team, but he would be learning behind a future Hall of Fame quarterback instead of a first-round bust in Daniel Jones.
Not that Steelers QB Aaron Rodgers is going to go out of his way to make sure Anthony Richardson knows the playbook well and has the tools to overtake Rodgers as QB1 should the Steelers' offense begin to struggle, but there is a huge difference between watching how Rodgers leads a team on the field and how Jones does.
Plus, let's be real. Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin is a lot better at controlling a team's culture than Shane Steichen. Tomlin's presence is going to be better for Richardson's approach than Steichen's. The Pittsburgh coach has more than a decade's worth of success.
In return for Richardson, Barnwell sees Indy getting a 2026 fourth-round choice. The problem with that (and this is meant as no disrespect to Barnwell, as he knows his stuff) is that only getting a fourth-round selection for a quarterback who was the fourth overall pick in the NFL draft just two years ago is pretty sad.
Still, Barnwell's decision is not out of line. The San Francisco 49ers chose quarterback Trey Lance third overall in the 2021 draft, but gave up on him and traded him to the Dallas Cowboys two years later for a fourth-round pick. Lance now plays on his third team, the Los Angeles Chargers.