In the frenzy of the first 24 hours of free agency, the Indianapolis Colts have surprisingly made some major moves - a marked departure from how general manager Chris Ballard has operated in the past. Typically stingy in free agency, Ballard previously focused on running it back with his current roster, but Ballard promised in post-season press conferences that he had learned from his mistakes. And evidently, that is true, as he's let several free agents go, and signed several others.
The biggest news is that Minnesota Vikings quarterback Daniel Jones is signing with the Colts on a one-year, $14 million deal. Jones will be coming to Indianapolis specifically to compete with Anthony Richardson for the starting quarterback job, and that leads to the question of how Richardson should respond. Retired QB Dan Orlovsky noted on X that $14 million is a lot of money just for the supposed chance to start, and questioned whether or not Richardson should request a trade.
After the idea of a trade was floated, Colts' alum Pat McAfee chimed in to say he agrees.
"That sounds like a good idea.. fresh start for a guy with MASSIVE upside"Pat McAfee
It may seem hard to believe after the struggles Richardson had in 2024, but his rookie season was relatively promising until he was injured for the season. And while Richardson himself has had his problems, his lack of success is arguably as much to blame on the Colts as it is on Richardson.
As analyst Kevin Clark pointed out, the Colts destroyed any chance Richardson had of winning.
"You took one of the most athletic quarterbacks we've ever seen at the Combine, you let him play for a month, he gets hurt, you let him play for another month, when he gets healthy, you bench him for Joe Flacco, who - by the way - was supposed to steady the ship, he steadied nothing, and then all of a sudden, you say, oh, we're going to bring in another guy," he said. "You have to give someone like Anthony Richardson a long runway to develop. They haven't done that. All of a sudden Chris Ballard and Shane Steichen are trying to save their jobs, they're trying to get a veteran in right now; for me, that would be somebody like a Justin Fields if I had to choose, but I just think that this is the wrong situation from the get-go."
"Anthony Richardson was failed. That doesn't mean he's a great quarterback, but he was failed in this situation. The whole thing is a football tragedy, the whole thing is football malpractice."Kevin Clark
McAfee himself has likewise argued that Richardson struggled so much this season because no one in the Colts organization bothered to teach him or train him.
Should Richardson seek out another team, then? It seems that many in the Indianapolis community have written him off already, as unfair as that may be; he's still the youngest QB in the entire league, with only a handful of starts under his belt, and he has already signaled his intentions to make the best effort he can to improve. He began working out before the official offseason practice schedule began; he arranged to work with Chris Hess, the biometric specialist responsible for transforming MVP Josh Allen's career, and then arranged to work out with Allen himself.
Very few people in the league seem to believe that Richardson is altogether a lost cause, and he still shows a remarkable amount of potential. It's more a question of whether or not there's a team in need of a quarterback, and the ability to mold that quarterback into something special.