Anthony Richardson clapped back at fans accusing him of being injury-prone

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson has been plagued with controversy during his second season. Though Richardson is an elite athlete with a rocket for an arm, he's struggled with inaccuracy in 2024. And now, fans are accusing him of being too fragile and injury-prone, too.

Richardson was forced to leave the 2023 season early due to numerous injuries. In Week 1, he had a bruised left knee, and then a concussion in Week 2. By Week 5, he had an AC joint sprain that took him out for the rest of the season. Now, in Week 4 of his second season, Richardson has been injured again - this time with a hip injury that has him questionable for the Colts' next game.

It was perhaps inevitable that people would begin labeling him of being injury-prone. All of Richardson's injuries have come during run plays, and of the eight games he's started in his NFL career, he's only finished four.

Richardson is now responding to fans who are complaining that he is injured too easily. "Well, it's football," he said. "I'm pretty sure if they got out the house and came out here and got hit by somebody that's running 20+ mph every week, I'm pretty sure they'd be sore and dealing with injuries as well. People are gonna talk, that's what people do. I'm not necessarily worried about [it], I'm just trying to focus on getting better day by day."

And for his part, head coach Shane Steichen is shrugging off those accusations, too.

“There’s always those things out there: Injury-prone, guys get hurt,” Steichen said, according to the IndyStar. “It’s football. Guys go out and play, injuries happen sometimes. You don’t want them to happen. Obviously, it happened. Obviously, it wasn’t a huge, huge injury. We’ll see how the week progresses and go from there.”

Plenty of people have already begun panicking over Richardson, or calling for backup QB Joe Flacco to take Richardson's place. But while Richardson is clearly still experiencing some growing pains as essentially a rookie, he and Steichen both clearly remain confident about his future.