Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts' Anthony Richardson Returns to Practice, Pair of Youngins Make Plays

Episode Date: May 24, 2024

Indianapolis Colts QB Anthony Richardson returned to practice for the first time in seven months this week, and he didn't look like a guy with a surgically-repaired arm. Along with his return, Michael Pittman Jr. had a scary moment that he walked away from while a pair of young defensive players made big plays. Find and follow Locked On Colts on your favorite podcast platforms:🎧 https://link.chtbl.com/LOColts?sid=YouTube📺YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLdpxJspi1hMh5HL7ExpWOQLocked On NFL League-Wide: Every Team, Fantasy, Draft & More🎧 https://linktr.ee/LockedOnNFL Follow Jake and Zach's written work on HorseshoeHuddle.com, and give them a follow on Twitter @JakeArthurNFL, @ZachHicks2, @LockedOnColts, and @ColtsOnFN! Today's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNFL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Yahoo FinanceFor comprehensive financial news and analysis, visit the brand behind every great investor. Yahoofinance.comeBay MotorsFor parts that fit, head to eBay Motors and look for the green check. Stay in the game with eBay Guaranteed Fit at eBayMotors.com. Let’s ride. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNFL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms Apply.FanDuelFanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning GUARANTEED That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – with any winning FIVE DOLLAR BET! Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)

It's been seven months, but we got our first views of Anthony Richardson taking the practice field with his teammates since his injury this week as Colts OTAs got underway. Let's get to it. You are Locked On Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. All right. Thanks for tuning in and making us your first listen of the day. This is your daily podcast covering your Indianapolis Colts. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day.

And today's show is brought to you by GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNFL for $20 off of your first purchase. Terms apply. What is up, friends? This is Jake Arthur of HorseshoeHuddle.com. And today we are chatting all about Colts OTAs. It got underway this week.

Us in the media, we had a day on Wednesday to go and check out the team. Again, it was our first view of Anthony Richardson since October, since he had that shoulder injury. Uh, it was kind of bizarre in general though. Like it wasn't just him that was back. It was, uh, you know, Jelani Woods was back out there. Dallas flowers was back out there. Uh, Jonathan Taylor being out there with Anthony Richardson. So it was, it was a really cool thing to see and just felt like a different team.

Although the Colts pretty much are running it back with the same team as last year, it just feels different because there's so many guys who are back from injury. So we'll talk about Anthony Richardson and kind of the day he had. He also spoke to the media afterward. We'll also discuss some injury updates. There was kind of a scary injury with Michael Pittman Jr., but Shane Syken kind of eased everyone's mind afterward. And then kind of some of the on-field highlights, because there was actually a practice to watch as well. So with Anthony Richardson, there are not really many governors on him right now. He's, for the most part, he's full go.

His arm, for me, looked perfectly fine. It looked a lot like it did last year. Really live arm. He's got a lot of power to it, a lot of zip. We did see him on cork one, deep one during warm-ups. He also had a nice one to Kylan Granson where he was moving out of the pocket, fired it downfield along the sideline. Granson made a great catch. Richardson afterwards said he's throwing about 60 plus yards right now, which for him, that's not full meter. He's still

got a little bit to go. For a lot of quarterbacks, that's a dream. So for Richardson, he's looking good. He's not totally back, but he's getting there. He did say that, you know, he does have some days where he wakes up and he's still got some soreness in the shoulder. That's not every day. But he is working his way back to being, you know, good as new, back to normal since before the injury. But he's out there practicing right now.

That's all you can really ask for. And he's not, they've been very careful with this process. So this is all you can really hope to see so far. As for the day he had, we saw him in seven on sevens and 11 on 11s. Between the two, he probably threw about a dozen balls. I think he only threw about six during the 11 on 11s. Kind of a ho-hum day overall, which is probably a good thing because he didn't really look rusty,

and he didn't look like he was in mid-season form. It looked like he was OTAs, and he's coming back from an injury. But he had the nice play to Granson. He did have an interception that he threw to Daniel Scott, which I'll elaborate on that more later because he was – that was kind of one of the highlights and something I actually asked Shane Steichen about after practice. But Richardson just kind of threw it a little behind Mo Alleycox,

a little low and behind him. And Scott was there to make the opportunistic play. But no, this is definitely, Richardson was definitely the biggest storyline of the day because it just eases your mind. There's no more mystery to it. Your quarterback is back. He's good enough to be back on the field right now. You're not having to put a bunch of restrictions on him. Like he is physically working himself back to being 100% once again. But I mean, he looks pretty close to it. Like watching him, you didn't really know that it was a guy whose season ended because his shoulder needed surgery.

So that is absolutely great news to see. When he spoke afterward, you know, he was very optimistic about everything. He also spoke really highly about his process behind the scenes. You know, he didn't get to have all of the reps on the field last year that you obviously would have liked to have seen because of the injury. But he was still there all the time watching film, studying, learning from Shane Steichen. So honestly, if you just think of it as his rookie year, he was on the sideline with a clipboard. board basically. He got the four games of playing experience, but he's still got all of the behind the scenes coaching experience and stuff that a rookie who never got to play their rookie year would have got, if that makes sense. So it was not by any means a total loss cause.

And he said he feels a lot more comfortable this time around. The craziness and the rigors of being a rookie and going through pre-draft stuff and doing all the, I don't want to call it unnecessary, but all the stuff that doesn't really contribute to your football season this time of year, that's all in the past. And he is totally focused on doing what he needs to, to be the best quarterback for this team right now. And so that's really encouraging as well. I mean, sure, he didn't get the 17 game slate to play last year, but outside of that, the guy is about as prepared as he possibly can be. He's also got, you know, aside from Shane Steichen and all the coaches, you know, that he's got to learn from, he's also got a guy in Joe Flacco now that has seen and done everything being on the field in the NFL.

And Richardson is the type of guy who is going to, you know, he's going to ask questions of everybody. He wants to use Flacco as a sounding board. He knows Flacco has been there and done that. And it's going to, he's, Flacco is going to be a great resource for him. Richardson is just that type of guy who is a sponge and he's going to soak everything up. You know, you kind of hear horror stories about, you know, young quarterbacks who think they're too cool for school and don't want to listen to

the older veteran quarterback. And that is not Richardson by any stretch of the imagination. So the guy mentally locked in, he's got a lot of great resources. He looks really good and is only going to get better from here. So coming up, we're going to dive more into injuries. Several guys who we didn't really get to see much of last year, like Richardson. We're back in the fold this week. Some guys were still out. One or two new injuries here to talk about as well. But we'll also kind of dive into the Michael Pittman Jr. thing as well, which, you know, knock on wood is something we can just talk about once and then not have to really discuss it much again after that. This episode is sponsored by Yahoo Finance. Wouldn't it be great if you could see all of your investments and retirement accounts in one place? With Yahoo

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All right, you absolutely beautiful everydayers, as Zach likes to call you. Let's talk injuries. So the big one of the day, obviously, Anthony Richardson. We cover that. He's back. So Michael Pittman Jr., scariest moment of the day. And honestly, when it happened, everything went silent. Everything on the field, everything on the sidelines where we were watching.

The music shot off. You could hear a pin drop. So Richardson threw a ball out to the right side to Michael Pittman Jr. Pittman and Jalen Jones had a little collision, and Pittman went down and was down on the ground for a few minutes. And, you know, teammates were surrounding him, trainers were surrounding him. And it just, it looked bad at the time. Then luckily Pittman got up on his own, went to the sidelines, got looked at a little more and then walked inside the facility. Again, all on his own power, limping lightly. After practice, Shane Steichen said,

you know, he just banged knees with Jones and he should be okay, which was great because in the moment watching him on the ground, you think, wow, you know, this is a tough break for this guy because this looks serious. But again, he walked out on his own power. That's a really tough dude. You always expect to see him do that. But to hear Shane, who is usually very noncommittal on injuries,

come out right after practice and say that he should be fine. I mean, knock on wood, but I'm going to take head coach's word for it that Pittman should be good. Now, with that said, will we see him again until training camp? I'm really not sure. We got more OTAs, and then at the beginning of June, we're going to have the mandatory veteran minicamp. But if the Colts want to play it safe with him, I have no problem with that because he is kind of an important player for the season. I will say when Pittman went out, Adonai Mitchell, who had been going in with the ones and twos, he got inserted into that

starting lineup with the ones afterward with Alec Pierce and Josh Dowd. So Mitchell does seem to be your next guy up as most of us would expect. Some guys who were back in the fold who missed either most or all of last season dallas flowers sporting his new number 21 uh he was back out there he went out he he suffered an achilles injury in like week five or six and missed the rest of the season evan hull suffered a meniscus injury in his knee in week one and was out. And Daniel Scott tore an ACL like this time last year. I think it happened either during OTAs or the veteran minicamp last year. So he never even made it to training camp.

He was out there as well. I mentioned Scott got the interception. So Flowers, good news. I mean, this doesn't seem like the type of guy Who's going to get injured and then lose his job I do think the Colts are just going to fully leave it up to Jones and Flowers To battle it out for the other starting outside cornerback spot Opposite of Juju Brents Obviously, Kenny Moore will be your nickel

Juju and Kenny should be your You know, in a base defense That should be your two starting know, in a base defense, that should be your two starting corners. But when Kenny kicks inside, it looks like Flowers will have every opportunity to get his job back versus Jones. So that'll be a good battle to see throughout the summer. Hull, you know, not a ton of work, you know,

but I fully expect that, like Zach and I discussed on our running back preview the other day trey sermon is probably your you know de facto rb2 but then evan hall and tyler goodson good chance they battled out for that that third down pass catching back um and then daniel scott again i'll punt this to the third segment because I do want to talk more about him. Guys who were still out, Braden Smith, after that left knee procedure early this offseason, he's not out there yet. The rest of the starting offensive line was. Ashton Doolin, he had an ACL last summer during training camp. He was not out there yet. He was out there watching on the sidelines, though.

He had a little sleeve on his knee. I think he's probably just still getting treatment for that. I don't know if he'll be back by training camp. We'll have to ask Shane about that, but the timing would line up. I think he's not a guy we're about missing too much time. And then Saguna Luby, we don't know what he was dealing with, but he was out as well. So again, I had mentioned it was really interesting to see all these guys back together. I mean, Pittman, of course, I'm going to factor him in. He was never hurt really last year, didn't miss extensive time, but just to see all the offensive pieces together, Richardson back with Jonathan Taylor, which is huge. Pittman, Jelani Woods, you know, Drew Ogletree, he was dealing with legal stuff. But all those guys actually being back,

it was just bizarre. Cause again, it's not a new team, but it felt like a new team. Jelani Woods, by the way, that's, that's one person that, uh, we asked Shane Steichen about him afterward and he just said, you know, he didn't really get to evaluate him much last year. Admittedly, like he had like a day or two in training camp because he missed like all of spring with, with a hamstring as well. So really all Shane saw of, of Jelani Woods last year was a couple of days at the beginning of training camp. Yeah, but he said, you know, how long he is and just the way he moves at his size is really good to see. I would expect, you know, you're waiting on this tight end room

to really have a couple of guys come up and separate. I think just like the default starters, if no one really steps up, you're looking at Mo Alleycox and Kylan Granson, which is fine. Like Granson is a guy that can move around and be kind of your H back. And Mo Alleycox can do some of that stuff as well. You see him moving around and being used as a blocker. But I think if you go into the season and your two starting tight ends are Mo Alleycox and Kylan Granson, either other guys have been injured or just have not stepped up, which is going to be really discouraging for the likes of really Woods, Will Mallory, and Drew Ogletree,

because those are your three guys with huge potential. And if none of them steps up and really grabs a prominent spot as a tight in the offense, like I think that will be kind of damning to see. Now, of course, there's context to everything. Like I say that I say that statement definitively. Now, we don't know what could transpire in between then and now. But in general, unless it's injuries, I think that would be kind of discouraging to see. So coming up here in a moment, we're going to talk about some of the actual on-field highlights of the OTA session from this week. With killer last minute deals, all in prices, views from your seat and their

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first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem code LOCKEDONNFL for $20 off. Download the GameTime app today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right. So some stuff actually happened on the field during practice that we saw. So we mentioned Jelani Woods. He had a couple of big plays where he created some yards after catch and the Colts have obviously really invested in these big athletic tight ends, but they don't – guys that big don't always move very smoothly,

but Woods really did. Like, he's huge. What is he, like 6'7", 260? But he moved around like a much smaller, more nimble guy, which is great because if you get a guy like that, the ball down the seam or you get him, you know, these posts or corners where he's, you know, you're hitting him in stride and he's got room to run. That guy's going to pick up extra yardage. And he really showed off that, that skillset on Wednesday. Jalen Carlisle probably got a little

extra work with Saguna Luby being on the sideline, but he looked good. And I'll tell you what, so this is a big safety that came down to linebackers. He's going to play linebacker for the Colts. He looks big for a linebacker. Like this dude is huge. He's jacked. He does not look like he was a safety by any means. But he moves around like one. So he picked off Joe Flacco during, I think it was seven on sevens.

But just made a nice play. Went low for it and was there to pick it up. So, you know, last year, this time we saw that Jalen Jones, that writing was kind of on the wall, seventh round pick for Jones, but he was, you know, there every day. I remember he picked off Sam Ellinger like twice in a practice that I remember seeing and had a pass breakup against another quarterback. So maybe Carlisle is this year's Jalen Jones. He's just going to be a really solid day three pick that is producing every day and finds a prominent role in the defense.

We'll have to see. Injuries happen all the time in the NFL. And if Zyre Franklin or EJ Speed, God forbid, something happens to either of them and they have to miss any chunk of time, Carlisle could be the next guy up depending on what role it is. And I mean, the Colts have high hopes for him. So, you know, his performance Wednesday, I'm now, you know, making a mental note to keep an eye on him big time come training camp, because we see it all the time. We're, I don't want to say un unheralded, but you know, a guy with a day three draft status, isn't really a gold star player that you're saying everybody watch him,

but Carlize might be the type of guy that we, we really need to pay attention to. After practice, Shane Steichen said that they're going to have two joint practices with the Cardinals before the second preseason game that week. And then the following week with the third preseason game, there's going to be one joint practice, presumably in Cincinnati against the Bengals before that final preseason game. So that stuff, I will, I'll be out there for those. I probably will go out to Cincinnati for that joint practice. I'll definitely be in Westfield for the two Cardinals one. So that was about it.

Yeah. So just kind of going over it. Richardson looked pretty good. You can't really tell that he'd been hurt. Had a nice throw to Granson. Did have the interception to Daniel Scott. So, you know, I'd been alluding to that with Daniel Scott. So this is someone who, again, he got hurt this time last year.

Never was, we were never able to see him during the season, but starting from the draft through anytime he's ever been mentioned or the safety group has ever been mentioned. I feel like Chris Ballard in particular has really talked Daniel Scott up. And so the first time we've seen him since last year, he makes a play against the ones on Anthony Richardson. Not a great throw from Richardson, which is fine. Of course, you're going to see people take that and run with it and say,

oh, great, Anthony Richardson's getting picked off by a backup safety. That's not really how it was. It wasn't a great throw from him by any means, but that stuff's going to happen. It is practice. You're not trying to beat. You're trying to iron things out in practice. You're not really trying to win a game. But afterwards, I asked Shane Steichen about that.

I was like, you guys don't really have a starting safety opposite of Julian Blackman. The talk is you hope Nick Crosser or Rodney Thomas steps up, but should we really be talking about Daniel here? And the answer was, yeah, like he's, you know, he's really in the mix. They're wanting some guy to step up and they're going to give these guys equal opportunities. Again, Daniel Scott was out there competing against, you competing against Anthony Richardson, who was obviously the starting quarterback. So I think they're going to give a lot of these guys the opportunity to earn that spot.

It's going to be a really competitive training camp, I think. And safety is, free safety is one of the least settled positions on the entire roster. So keep an eye out for Daniel Scott. That's obviously a guy that Zach and I have tried to talk up whenever we can. But obviously after tearing an ACL last year, like what can you really say about him? And we may be overhyping him and he just is a special teams player, whatever.

But it's worth keeping an eye out for a guy who has talent and a ton of experience back at Cal. Great athleticism. Good leadership. Those type of guys are going to be given opportunities. And, again, he plays a position that is unsettled. So, who's the starting free safety? I'm going to say keep an eye out for him.

Watch him in the mix there. So, thanks again for hopping on here with us every day. Remember that Locked On has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube. And now it's also available on Amazon Fire TV and the free Fire TV channels app. Locked On Sports Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of Locked On, plus our national shows covering every league.

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we will see you guys tomorrow chatting up the next chapter in our positional preview, the wide receivers.