Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts: QB Anthony Richardson Struggles in Loss to Green Bay Packers

Starting point is 00:00:00 Is it time to hit the panic button on the young quarterback Anthony Richardson after his first big letdown of a start? 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. Thank you all for tuning in and making us your first listen of the locked on podcast network your team every day thank you all for tuning in and making us your first listen of the day this your daily podcast covering your uh indianapolis colts part of the locked on podcast network your team every day today's episode is brought to you by fanduel now through september 22nd all fanduel customers can bet five dollars and get a three

Starting point is 00:00:42 week free trial of nfl sund Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Visit FanDuel.com to get started. Hello, everyone. I am Zach Hicks, your favorite film nerd over at HorseshoeHull.com. And I am joined, as always, on this Monday afternoon by my friend Ben Boris at Colts Film Room over on Twitter. And your guy over at the Blue Stable, right? Blue Stable is what it is over there. Yeah, check him out over on Blue Stable.

Starting point is 00:01:07 Does some really great work there. And also, again, on his Twitter, at Colts Film Room, he posts a lot of really cool stuff and work, especially the scouting reports, too, going into the week. I wish the Colts would have read some of your scouting report on the Green Bay Packers. It would have made life a lot easier, I think, for this offense. But today we're going to change up the way that we structure the Anthony made life a lot easier, I think, for this offense. But today we're going

Starting point is 00:01:25 to change up the way that we structure the Anthony Richardson show a little bit, just because this game was a bit weird for the Colts. Again, no normal games, I guess, with this Colts team. So instead of going good, bad, and then outlook with Richardson in this one, we're going to go overall totality of what we saw Anthony Richardson segment, like just taken away from everything else in the offense. Then we're going to talk about the offense itself, what Shane Steichen needs to do to be better, what these pass catchers, aside from Alec Pierce, Alec Pierce, we love you, but everyone else, we got to talk about what you did out there. And then to finish it off, we're going to talk about again, the outlook

Starting point is 00:02:03 and the panic meter and where we're at with Anthony Richardson right now. So Ben, I know you charted a lot of this game already. You kind of went through the nitty gritty details of this just ugly, ugly showing from the Colts offense. What was your overall take on Anthony Richardson? Again, ripped away from the scheme issues, from the player performances, you know, the drops and stuff like that. Rip all that away. What was your overall opinion on what Anthony Richardson showed on Sunday? Yeah, I saw kind of going into last week, a player really trying to put a franchise on his back

Starting point is 00:02:36 and doing it in a really tough, hostile road environment. I thought his footwork, you know, kind of regressed or slipped into maybe bad habits that, you know, maybe had been problems at Florida. And that's just like nerves, right? Like that's his first real road start. Like he played, what was a couple of drives in Houston. They got up big because they, you know, scored on the opening drive. Then there's obviously the turnover and then they, they are start with the ball in the red zone. So they don't really like before the concussion, unfortunately.

Starting point is 00:03:11 So this was his first real road start, and going to Lambeau is never easy. So there's going to be games like this. I mean, shoot, like look at the guy who's in the quarterback room with him. You don't think Joe Flacco's had games like this as a starter. It's always going to happen. But I saw, you know, just a young player that learned a lot of valuable lessons throughout all this yeah and and i think the one my big one takeaway especially we're looking at like the negatives of anthony richardson in this game is i think in his other was this his sixth start i believe is the sixth start in the nfl um his other five starts i think

Starting point is 00:03:41 his eyes have always been good and his decision decision-making, for the most part, has been really good in every single game. The accuracy and the footwork has not always been there in every start, but I do think the decision-making and the eyes have always been good. This one, and credit to the Green Bay Packers' defense, they got Anthony Richardson to a lot of questionable decisions. We can talk about those two interceptions the first two interceptions because they're just throws that if he were more of an experienced quarterback or like unacceptable they're kind of understandable as a young

Starting point is 00:04:13 quarterback but still things that you just don't want to see from your young quarterback and kind of got baited into some bad decisions in this game and look, he has not seen the field much in his NFL career, in his whole playing career at this point. So there are going to be a lot of lessons. I think one positive for him is he hasn't made the same mistake twice yet this year. I mean, each interception and each, you know, bad throw has kind of been one thing on its own. So we'll see if he starts repeating mistakes. Like if he reads a high low wrong again next week and throws another pick then then we'll discuss that you know but so far like we don't really have enough information information to say like this is a consistent issue with him when it comes

Starting point is 00:04:55 to these mistakes but the two interceptions again throwing off your back foot over the middle of the field you can't sail that pass and when you sail it the middle of the field safety is always going to be waiting for it like that. And then the high-low, like he tried to look off the defender, just did not get the movement that he needed and still kind of tried to just slam it through a window that was already closed. And it ended up being an interception. So, yeah, like those two turnovers can't really happen. And those are a young quarterback just pressing too much.

Starting point is 00:05:24 And like you said, trying to put the team on his back again in both of those situations because first one he was down 10 nothing throwing it off his back foot getting pressure in his face trying to make a play in the moment i tweeted spiraling like that's just trying to make too much of too much out of the moment where it's like hey let's i think you get in you know you get into that huddle where it's like, hey, let's, I think you get in, you know, you get into that huddle and it's like, hey, we're only down, it's 10-0, two touchdowns, we're right back in this. A touchdown here and we're right back in this game. So I think there's a little bit of that mentality element where I, you know, I feel like there's some nerves, there's still some nerves going on. I think I would just urge, again, and I feel like we're both trying to do this, is just urge Colts fans to take a step back, realize that, yes, Anthony Richardson has this

Starting point is 00:06:09 awesome potential, and he did get a lot of preseason hype, but it's not there yet. It's going to. I have full faith that it's going to. You have to have faith in Shane Steichen, and you have to have faith in Anthony Richardson, the person, to go get it figured out. I think it will. It's going to take some time though, because I saw a quarterback who was on his first road start. Yeah. And look, we have watched rookie quarterbacks since the beginning of this new era of football. I would say the new era of football started in like 2018, 2019. And I would call this kind of the defensive era of football. Again, like a defensive-centered era where quarterbacks are struggling. I mean, MVPs are finishing the season with 3,000 yards passing,

Starting point is 00:06:50 you know, like Lamar Jackson last year. Yes, he supplemented a lot of the run game in there, but we are not seeing great quarterback play by and large these last couple years aside from those top-tier guys. So he's growing up in this really rough environment for young quarterback play. He's making mistakes early that we've seen from a lot of rookies, like aside from the CJ Stroud rookies, which unfortunately he's always going to be compared to because they were drafted so close to each other.

Starting point is 00:07:15 Aside from the Strouds or the Herberts or even like a Baker Mayfield, like this is what rookie quarterbacks look like or young quarterbacks have looked like. Josh Allen's age 22 age 22 season was not a good season i mean he had more uh games under four under 50 completion percentage than above 60 you know we jordan love last year wasn't even a rookie but we saw the struggles in the first half of the season jalen hurts really bad uh rookie season and first couple starts his sophomore season so this is a normal development path for a quarterback. I think the positives that I can look at with him is he is someone who so far, so far, I will get concerned if this gets to him, but so far he's not seeing all that completion percentage stuff

Starting point is 00:07:56 and all the talk around his accuracy and going into a shell. He has not gone into a shell whatsoever. I think in these first two games we've seen, like, he kind of gets better as his back is against the wall and the Colts have no chance of winning. We see him just ripping the ball down the field and really, like, unleashing the ball down the... Like, he doesn't go into a shell because things are struggling, and that's what leads to some of these three and outs,

Starting point is 00:08:26 you know, which need to get better. But it's like he doesn't go into a shell because things are struggling. And that's what leads to some of these three and outs, you know, which need to get better. But it's like he doesn't go into a shell at all. He's still confident throwing the ball down the field. He's still moving well in the pocket. He's still, you know, fourth and 11. He's running for the first down, which was a fantastic play for him. Like, you're still seeing the playmaking ability and the resilience in this young quarterback. And he's not taking needless sacks. He's not going into a shell and being scared to this young quarterback. And he's not taking needless sacks. He's not going into a shell

Starting point is 00:08:46 and being scared to throw the football. It might result in more interceptions, but in your first kind of year starting, if you being aggressive leads to interceptions and you can just clean that up in year two or year three, whatever it is, like, I think that's fine. So like, I'm fine with taking the interceptions

Starting point is 00:09:01 and the bad decisions and inaccurate moments, as long as that aggressiveness is still there, as long as the peaks are still there, because you can iron that stuff out. You can't iron out a quarterback who gets in his own head and loses confidence. So far, he has not lost confidence. So I am still very optimistic about him figuring this out. It's an early, early, early time for him right now. He's a 22-year-old starter, younger than most rookie quarterbacks that come into the league. It's going to take a lot of time. And so far, there's nothing that I've seen from Anthony Richardson

Starting point is 00:09:32 that has led me to be concerned or super concerned by any means. Yeah, I echo a lot of those same statements where it's like, listen, interceptions are going to happen in the National Football League. They just are. Quarterbacks are going to throw them. It comes down to here's the adversity. How do you respond from it? Here's the mistake. How do I learn from it? And I think Anthony Richardson has shown to do that. I think you're just looking at a young player. It's a project player, no doubt about it. I i mean he was always going to get that label with just a very little football that he's played um and you just expect that to continue

Starting point is 00:10:10 so it's one of those things where you learn from both of those interceptions i think the first one is probably way more inexcusable than maybe the second one yeah which we can maybe get to in the second segment um but they're both bad. They were both bad decisions. So I hope that he can learn to maybe settle down and not get yourself into a position where your back is against the wall. But resilient is the perfect word. Like when this team is fighting for a chance to get back in the game, Anthony Richardson is dialed in every single time. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:10:48 Yeah, no, I think, I believe his first throw after the interception was the double move to A.D. Mitchell at the sideline on the next drive. And it's like, that's good. That's a great sign. That is such a positive sign. That was a great throw. It was a great throw. Yeah, but you know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:11:01 Like, just the ability to where, like, you throw a bad pass, throw an interception that you shouldn't throw throw next drive you're ripping it down the field for a big gain that's what i care about with young quarterbacks is how do you respond to those bad moments um so overall again like i don't think this is um you know anything too concerning when it comes to anthony richardson i think this is very normal for a young quarterback. Again, we've seen it with Josh Allen, Jordan Love. We've seen it with Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson's first year. He was just coming in for running plays only behind Joe Flacco. We see this out of most young quarterbacks. I know he's getting compared to CJ Stroud, who's different, but this is what we see out of young, raw quarterbacks. But coming up, we're going to talk about the other end of this equation,

Starting point is 00:11:45 which is Shane Steichen and these pass catchers. They simply need to be better, man. They really need to be better because Anthony Richardson's a young quarterback who's going to have his mistakes. You're a highly paid wide receiver. You're a very good head coach. You really can't have these mistakes that they gave the Colts here this past Sunday. We're going to talk about that here in just a second. But first, when you're hiring for your small business, you want to find

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Starting point is 00:14:18 about everything good and bad with Richardson in the first segment. Now it's time to talk about the other end of the equation which is Shane Steichen and these pass catchers really let down their young quarterback in this one I mean Richardson was 17 of 34 in this game a little over 200 yards a touchdown and three picks one of the picks was a Hail Mary like it it's whatever on that one uh but yeah touchdown two picks not a great day from him whatsoever but I think the box score looks a little worse than what it actually was and i'm not saying that richardson bears no fault in some of these drops and throws i mean the throw in the flat to jonathan taylor on fourth down was not a good ball from him it needs

Starting point is 00:14:58 to be a little bit lower uh and give taylor the ability to turn jt can also catch that and that's the thing you can catch that. Yeah. You're on a three year, what? $48 million contract driver. You've got to make that catch. Like you're a big time paid. And honestly, it's probably why he didn't play in the fourth quarter because you're not making catches like that. So plays like that, like you've got to make that catch 80 Mitchell burning a corner on third down at the end of the half would have been a nice 15 plus yard gain ball right in his breadbasket drops it Michael Pittman Jr. the play before that nice little you know a little curl route little hook route to get them into a third and manageable

Starting point is 00:15:34 drops the ball right there I mean Alec Pierce who honestly aside from this play has no fault he's been great but on this play slips slips and falls on a four verts concept or vertical concept um slips and fall would have been a 25 yard gain down to the goal line near the goal line slipping and falling like that led to an incompletion when the ball was good like kyle and granton another ball that hit him in the chest in this one that he did not complete so like we got to talk about the shane steichen aspect too but like these pass catchers and i didn't even mention the the effort issues and the and the just not getting their head around on some routes. Like it was a really ugly game for these Colts pass catchers, which was supposed to be a strength

Starting point is 00:16:14 of this team coming into the season. Yeah. Um, it's tough because we would talk so much about Anthony Richardson, but it's hard to evaluate a quarterback in a vacuum. Like we can talk about the footwork, we can talk about the reads, but the situation around him is always going to, it's a, it's a team sport. Like it always is. Uh, the drops are a problem though. I do think there'll be fixed. I think Anthony Richardson throws the ball just harder than a lot of people are used to. I think Greg Olson said this on the broadcast, but like, you know, it looks like some of these Colts catchers are catching with their body well I think it's just because the the ball is coming out so fast um and I so I think that that's something that you always for me drops always seem to kind

Starting point is 00:16:55 of fix itself with young wide receivers I mean Jamar Chase had a drop problem Devontae Adams on the other side had a drop problem so So these things sort of fix itself out. The thing about A.D. Mitchell is they're separated. He's separating, no doubt about it. He is showing that he's shown through two games that he's a tough cover. You cannot cover him one-on-one. It's tough. He's had his moments, of course, like every young wide receiver,

Starting point is 00:17:23 but there's a lot of good things that he's doing. It's just not resulting in catches because he's got to catch the ball. He's got to run his routes. He's got to run his routes. I think that's all perfect. I think you look at what the Colts were setting out to get in a pick like A.D. Mitchell, and they wanted a boundary X receiver that could, when we go three by one, that guy's going to win on the backside. That guy can be a mismatch on the backside.

Starting point is 00:17:46 That's what they needed in this offense, and I think they've got that with A.D. Mitchell. It's just got to come together still. So, yeah, I think one of the things on the – I want to use the term effort issues loosely because there's so much stuff going. Like I don't know what they're teaching i don't know what happened with michael pitman jr or ad mitchell or alec pierce or ashton like i don't know i'm just guessing but i'm looking on the tape and like it's just critical situations where like i've seen you run faster than this i've seen you run harder than this

Starting point is 00:18:23 and i think that second interception, the one that kind of everyone was up in arms where like AR throws it in a window he should have never thrown it in. Totally agree. I think it looks way worse when he hits his back foot and it's really nothing's there. And he's just forcing to make a play because the high low defender eric wilson they're playing quarter quarter half and they're it's a two receiver set so they're going to be playing palms coverage or two re coverage or whatever he doesn't carry pitman up vertically that's not his job so like yes 80 was open on the play but only because that was when anthony richardson committed his hips and then eric Eric Wilson then drove or committed vertically to the dig he knew that was coming from Pittman.

Starting point is 00:19:10 So, like, my argument was, yes, it was a bad decision. If the offense around him potentially showed more urgency and put actual stress in the zones and didn't make it so easy for Grima to distribute those routes, i think the window gets potentially um you know i think i think a lot of stuff i think that maybe that's not a pick and then the other argument that you could make kind of go into stike and i think this was kind of the one this plague really summed up a lot of things for me it's like we we're in 12 personnel wing slot i love that formation but we closing. This is like the second time

Starting point is 00:19:45 that we've closed half the field in that formation. And I just, I don't necessarily love it when you have pass catchers, I think at tight end that you might like. It resulted in the Houston game in that Ashton Doolin touchdown. This time it ended in an interception. So I think it's something that I look forward to look to move going forward. But I think that one play summed up so much of the offense for me. Yeah, it's it seems like the the pat the dropback pass and we don't have too much time for this. So we'll just touch on it real quick. But like when it comes to Shane Steichen, like, it's a lot of just dropback passing, like very standard dropback. Like

Starting point is 00:20:24 there's a lot of play action from the gun as well. And yeah, and they are doing a lot of just drop back passing, like very standard drop back. Like there's a lot of play action from the guns as well. And yeah, and they are doing a lot of pistol and stuff, but it's very static. Like a lot of this is very static what they're doing. And compared to last year where it was so much RPO, so much RPR, so much getting their quarterback on the move. I don't know why that's gone this year like even when richardson played last year i don't entirely know either and i think that that's what they need

Starting point is 00:20:50 to get back to because like i think they really saw in the houston game they saw you know derrick stingley's a great corner and they have some good players in that secondary but derrick stingley's also an aggressive corner i mean they went after him in double moves and it worked for a lot of the game and anthony richardson does have a live arm and I don't necessarily hate the game plan of, Hey, like we have a quarterback with an explosive arm. He's going to be absolutely fired up to play this game. Let's let it loose. Like we think we can beat them deep. They can't run with us. I don't hate that plan. Now going into week two, it's not that they had the same plan but nothing's clicking and i don't think that these shot plays even with alien arm talent can really are gonna it's not something you want to hang your hat on so i think this is a

Starting point is 00:21:35 probably the kick in the mouth that maybe indianapolis needed to maybe make some of those adjustments i think getting josh downs back is going to be huge for making some of those uh adjustments and they desperately need to in a bears defense that defends the deep ball better than anyone else so yeah i desperately need a josh downs like a catch for like 55 yard game like that would be perfect like i don't much more like eight nine catches for 55 yards just to keep the pace moving a little bit on offense and complete some passes. Like I'd be fine with that in this upcoming game. But yeah, you know,

Starting point is 00:22:08 I digress from this conversation on stiking the receivers. They both need to be better. Stiking needs to have, again, more layups in the offense. Like the, the thing is, it's not even that Richardson's like missing layups.

Starting point is 00:22:18 It's they're not really being targeted. His ADOT is like 15 right now. He's got the most play action in week one that he ever has uh yeah from my chart i don't know what whatever else did um it's it's been a lot of these long developing routes and i think he's got the arm to make it work obviously but like at a certain degree like what look at the i i liked i almost liked watching the jackson game more, even though that that offense was kind of broken for a little bit because it was like creative quarterback run game. I think that there was quarterback run game in this.

Starting point is 00:22:54 They just forced the give every single time. Some of the big runs from Jonathan Taylor were quarterback runs, if you put it that way. Yeah, it just needs to be better. There needs to be more in the quick game. There needs to be just more calls for the quick game. Like it can't just be the only quick game you have is check downs and spot routes.

Starting point is 00:23:11 Like that can't be your quick game. So overall, it just needs to be better from, from Stike and these other receivers, hopefully getting back Josh downs will help a lot of that. But I do think this is part of the equation with Anthony Richardson. I think once Josh downs comes back, hopefully I'm again, this Bears defense is tough,

Starting point is 00:23:27 but once Downs comes back, I do think we'll see some improvement in that area of the field for the Colts. But coming up, we're going to talk about Anthony Richardson again, and we're going to go to the panic meter, overall outlook, and where he needs to be better, or just what we need to see from this young quarterback going forward to ease some of our concerns and some of your guys' concerns as well. But first, you have heard us talk a lot about our friends over at FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. Well, we have something a little bit different for you.

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Starting point is 00:25:09 What's the scale? Out of 10 is like, yeah, yeah, yeah. One and a half to like, it's like, yes, there is some concern in terms of a quarterback who wasn't very accurate in college, still hasn't been very accurate in the NFL in terms of completion percentage. I get there being some concern there. Like I'm not going to say it's completely out the window, but again, I think if you've been following rookie quarterbacks in the last like 10 years, this is such a normal development for these guys, especially for his archetype of rookie quarterback that again, the big athlete, like big armed, uh, just kind of

Starting point is 00:25:46 gunslinger type. Like he's, his ADOT is rivaling Justin Herbert's rookie season. And Herbert was like a four-year starter at Oregon. It's a very, very different world that he's living in than most rookie quarterbacks. So I, I've seen a lot of normal from him. Like he, he looks like an Allen Love, you know, type of young quarterback. I'm not too concerned about him long term, although we do need to see improvement. Like if we see like four or five games in a row of what we just saw on Sunday, yes, then I will be concerned, you know. But I think there's a lot of good things with his game. I think this was one very disappointing start from him. But overall, I think in terms of just the long-term projection of him, this doesn't really change much. I'm actually glad that he got to see a game where his eyes were deceiving him,

Starting point is 00:26:31 and he made some bad decisions. I'm glad he got to experience that firsthand because you need those reps. And I'm glad that he still was confident in himself by the end, still ripping the ball down the field, still trying to score late in the game and throwing a touchdown pass late. I think there were a lot of positive signs from Anthony Richardson in this ugly loss for the Indianapolis Colts. Yeah, I think it comes across, you know, as like making excuses or whatever. But I think there's like he's going to inevitably have these games. He needs more.

Starting point is 00:27:05 He's always needed reps. Like don't say Shane Steichen would never lie to you. Like even if you asked him off the record, like does Anthony Richardson need reps? Yes. Yes. He needs to play football. These need it. I'm less concerned about what happened on Sunday

Starting point is 00:27:25 than I would potentially be if they weren't in the quarterback room on Monday getting it corrected. I love that Joe Flacco is there because I think that that's a guy that you can fall back on, a guy who's played a lot of football. I think the biggest mistake potentially you can make with a young quarterback is not having a guy that's been there before in that room. And that's exactly what they have in Indianapolis. I think he's going to have these kind of games. I think I can't reiterate that enough. He's going to have

Starting point is 00:27:59 some of these games. It's just a matter of setting your expectations because he's not disappointing anyone except us because we had the expectations through the roof. Like this is, it's going to happen. Yeah. I will say, I think we got to stop confusing the expectations we had for this football team with the expectations for Anthony Richardson. Totally. Totally. Because yes, this is a Chris Ballard team in year eight of his tenure with a lot of veteran players i understand having higher expectations for the team themselves for the team being it being able to pick up their young quarterback through the highs and the lows but i i don't think we need to conflate that with a 22 year old in his sixth career start his what 25th start

Starting point is 00:28:43 since high school like he's going to have the highs and lows yeah yeah it might be even less than that yeah like it he's gonna have a lot of highs and lows in the nfl uh and and this is not gonna be the last this this might not this will probably not be the worst game of his of this year like he will have no doubt no doubt like he honestly was able to turn it around in that fourth quarter and have a pretty good fourth quarter. Like he's going to have worse games this year because this is him growing. This is his growth season.

Starting point is 00:29:13 Honestly, I wish this season happened last year following their four, their four win season in, in 2022, because then it would have, the expectations would have been a little bit lower because, but because they got to nine wins last year, eight wins, whatever it was, the expectations are a bit higher. And I'm glad that it's not getting to him. But overall, I'm really not too concerned with him. I like what we're seeing in terms of his pocket feel, his confidence, his arm talent, getting the ball down the field.

Starting point is 00:29:40 He's getting the ball to his receivers for the most part. It's just there needs to be better sequencing in the offense. There needs to be more layups. There needs to be more cohesion in the offense and just more of a plan. I do think a lot of this drop back passing and play action passing for Richardson is good for his development, even if it's bad for the Colts winning games right now. Because if the Colts, I don't want to say if they're trying to win but like if you're trying to just bring out all you can out of Richardson to win games right now you are running him into the ground in this past game you're using the QB run game a lot you're moving the pocket you're you're really getting him moving I kind of think that a lot of these play actions

Starting point is 00:30:20 and longer developing plays are good for his development because he's seeing more of the field even if it's not translating to good things on the field right now for the offense and and the lack of cohesion for the offense does that kind of make sense ben am i yeah i think the best thing you said is we can't conflict our expectations for the team with their expectations for anthony richardson um like this is a team that obviously year eight of Chris Ballard, a team that gets talked about as having a, being really talented. And it is, I think it is a talented team. Um, but the, the letdowns that are happening are not due to Anthony, like again, Anthony

Starting point is 00:30:58 Richardson is only disappointing us because we had too, too much expectations. Like it's, we're going to see some of these games. We're going to see probably even, it's we're going to see some of these games we're going to see probably even i think we're going to see it we're probably going to get on here and there's probably going to be one that's even worse where it's some what do you do in interception to lose the game or something hopefully not but it's it's just the reality this is the games that happen to the even the best uh so i'm not panicked. I'm not worried from an offense, like that kind of perspective. I just think that like the team needs to help. I think we just hit it on the nail, the nail on the head, like team's got to play better for him. Coach has to give him

Starting point is 00:31:39 better answers, I think, offensively. And they just need to get back to what's worked for them in the past. I think, you know, you they just need to get back to what's worked for them in the past. I think, you know, you never want to take the confidence away from a quarterback. So I do like some of the shot plays for Anthony Richardson, some of these longer – I do. You can give credit to that. Like if we wanted Anthony Richardson to beat Kirk Cousins – I love this from Dan Orleski.

Starting point is 00:32:00 If we wanted Anthony Richardson to beat Kirk Cousins, he's a fourth-round, fifth-round pick. Like it's not – we want him to do all these things that make Anthony Richardson the number four overall pick. That's what we need from him. So yeah, all in all, I think it's really easy to get down on yourself when the, and given how polarizing anthony richardson is as a as a prospect and you'll hear a lot of people be first to jump on it when it doesn't work uh and but when it does you'll well hopefully we'll all have the last laugh yeah yeah my final thoughts i want to say on this is again what he's going through right now in his first six starts in the NFL, extremely normal for his archetype of quarterback.

Starting point is 00:32:46 Like there is not one thing in his statistical profile, in his, you know, in like really anything in his first six career starts as an NFL passer that says this is outrageously terrible compared to his archetype. Again, we're looking at the archetypes. We're looking at the Allens. We're looking at the Hurts. We're looking at the Jordan Loves. This is a very, very normal progression for a young quarterback with his type of build and what type of quarterback he is. So don't get panicked, guys, especially for a quarterback who has less experience than all of those guys did coming out. He has less snaps overall, seeing like he is one of the most inexperienced and youngest quarterbacks that we've seen come into the NFL,

Starting point is 00:33:30 and he's looking like a normal rookie quarterback in that mold. And honestly, if his receivers catch the ball, they get into a better rhythm offensively. I'm not sure that it's as bad of a day as it really was. Yeah, yeah. So like panic meter, very low, guys. Like I know it's's hard but like when we see the bench in for flacco and all that like no no no no absolutely not this is very normal

Starting point is 00:33:54 like you have to stomach the highs and lows of a young quarterback to reap the benefits in in the future i mean what andrew luck completing 54% of his passes in the most pass happy era of football we have ever seen. 54% of his passes and 18 interceptions his rookie season. These things happen. Normal quarterbacks go through lumps and lumps and bruises. It, it, it happens. So I really think the panic meter needs to be very low right now. He will be fine. The Colts will be fine on offense, their defense Their defense, probably not. I'm not here to talk defense. But yeah, like I do think that this thing can,

Starting point is 00:34:33 because he is so polarizing of a prospect and when you're an inevitable football fan and you're looking to engage for content, a lot of it is just going to jump on whatever makes sense. It's going to be people that don't actually watch the Colts. They just kind of looked at the box score or watch some of the highlights and then made their own conclusion. So they could go on national television or write their article or do whatever they need to do because they're covering 32 teams.

Starting point is 00:34:54 This is, I agree with Zach. It's completely normal. People are going to jump all over it when it doesn't work, but people are going to be there to ride the highs. It is the roller coaster. But I, I think this thing can flip the script real fast. Yeah, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:35:13 Before we get out of here, though, I do want to remind you guys that our friends over at Locked on NFL have two shows every day, one featuring Tyler Rowland in the morning and then Tony Wiggins for some real NFL talk afterwards. Add in the Locked on local markets, local experts, and you get unprecedented NFL insight all in 30 minutes. It's the new Locked On NFL, and it's twice a day. Make the madman Tyler Rowland and the barber Tony Wiggins

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Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts: QB Anthony Richardson Struggles in Loss to Green Bay Packers

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