Whoever advised quarterback Anthony Richardson to attend the Indianapolis Colts voluntary workouts just after the 2026 NFL draft made the right suggestion. Thankfully, the QB took said suggestion and joined the team activity, according to ESPN's Stephen Holder.
That isn't because by doing so, Richardson will put himself into a position to be a long-term starter for Indy, but the move might make him more tradeable. Indy is going to start Daniel Jones once he is fully healthy, and Riley Leonard might be QB2. AR5 might have been so put off by those possibilities that he didn't show up when he didn't have to.
Now that he has, other teams might take note that while the quarterback has asked to be traded, he isn't a liability to have on a roster. He isn't going to cause discourse of disappointment in the locker room, nor try to act as if he is bigger than any given team.
Anthony Richardson shows up at Indianapolis Colts voluntary workouts
He might not be worthy of being a starting quarterback for the Colts, but he is showing that if another team were thinking about trading for him, they would get a decent human being. That matters. Maybe not as much as completing 70 percent of one's passes and having a lot more touchdowns than interceptions, but adding a team's culture positively is also vital.
The quarterback appearing at the voluntary workouts likely also means that he understands his situation a bit better. No team has offered anything for his services, or at least not enough to make general manager Chris Ballard pull a deal, but Richardson also wouldn't want to be outright released.
He might not start for Indy, but he at least still wants to get paid by the team in the 2026 season. If he was thinking of holding out, the idea of which is seemingly easily dismissed after he showed up in May workouts when he otherwise could have been vacationing, the team could have simply released him.
Sure, he didn't show up in Indianapolis for the first two weeks of workouts, but that he did at all is meaningful. He isn't a bad guy; he's just been a bad quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts. He might be great somewhere else, and he's proving that another team should take a chance on trading for him.
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