Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts: Shane Steichen, Anthony Richardson, Joe Flacco Reveal Thoughts On QB Situation

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Colts benched Anthony Richardson, and today we got to see our first reactions from Richardson, the man who made the call on Shane Steichen, and the new quarterback in Joe Flacco. 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,

Starting point is 00:00:35 part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. And you can start the season with a big return on FanDuel. New customers can place a $5 bet. You'll get started with $150 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. Just visit FanDuel.com to get started. What is up, everybody? This is Jake Arthur of HorseshoeHuddle.com. And today we, of course, are discussing the Anthony Richardson saga.

Starting point is 00:01:03 So on Tuesday, if you've been living under a rock for the last 24 or so hours as a Colts fan, it was announced that the Colts were making the switch from Anthony Richardson as the starting quarterback to Joe Flacco. And that was pretty much the end of what we had heard at that point. But today, per a normal Wednesday, we're there at the Colts facility, got to speak with Shane Steichen, Anthony Richardson, and Joe Flacco. So today we'll kind of bring you what all the main points of what was said. And I haven't really given my take on everything yet. I know you guys heard from Zach a bit yesterday. So I'll give you guys kind of what my gauge on the whole situation

Starting point is 00:01:45 is. And you know, kind of where do they go from here. So today, Shane said he acknowledged because it's obviously been a huge NFL news story. He acknowledged that Anthony Richardson has been benched in favor of Joe Flacco. This is for the remainder of the season. The plan is for Joe Flacco to be the starter moving forward this season with Anthony Richardson serving as the backup. So those two just get flip-flopped. Sam Allinger, I imagine, will still be the emergency third quarterback. I don't think anything changes with him. I know there was some talk about Jason Bean. He did get reactivated to the practice squad this week. He was just hurt.

Starting point is 00:02:28 He had been banged up and was on the practice squad injured list. He is now just not hurt anymore. I don't think that has any bearing on this quarterback situation whatsoever. He just is healthy and now to participate in practice again. Shane was asked about, he confirmed as much. I know the timing looks a certain way, but I don't, I just really don't read too much into that one. Reasoning for the switch to Joe, Shane said that Joe Flacco, he feels gives them the best chance to win. He acknowledged he did not know if Anthony is going to start again for the Colts,

Starting point is 00:03:06 not just the season, but, you know, he said that would be nice, but he can't guarantee anything. Uh, so it appears, you know, if all goes to plan this, this thing at minimum for this year, the Anthony Richardson stuff is, is done. Uh, we're going to get more into the prospects for next season in 2025 soon, but the plan is to only see Joe Flacco play quarterback this year. That's why Anthony is the backup now, just as the roles were reversed. So, I mean, let's dive into it a little bit. Obviously, if this is just done on merit and it's because of Richardson's play, he is completing only 44% of his passes this year. His yards per attempt has begun to decrease as well. Now, obviously, at the start of the year, it started

Starting point is 00:03:56 in the stratosphere. It was like 11.5 or whatever because he had a huge game against the Texans. That's obviously not sustainable, but it did start to come back down to earth a little bit. His touchdown to turnover ratio, like total touchdowns is only five. Only has one rushing touchdown all season at this point. It felt like he had that much already. He had about five or so total rushing touchdowns to this point already last year. So he's only got one, which was a bit odd. Now that a lot of that is more so the play calls down in the red zone, because he did the vast majority of his rushing work,

Starting point is 00:04:33 at least the fruit of it in the red zone last year, nine turnovers though, including a pair of fumbles lost. People talk about the interceptions, but lost fumbles are just as big of a part of this whole thing as well. So he's almost doubled up turnovers to touchdowns. This inefficient offense is very dependent on the downfield action, as we've seen, whether you've watched it live, whether you've rewatched it. It's almost impossible not to notice that there's just almost no short passes being attempted almost when Anthony is back there. There are some routes that are going that way,

Starting point is 00:05:18 but it's either not what they want him to do or it's not something he wants to do. He's looking downfield. So an offense like that that is always looking downfield and that's like almost always where the ball goes beyond the sticks, that obviously is going to be very inefficient. It creates shorter drives. That's why you see so many three and outs. Very clunky, ugly offensive games from the Colts where it's three, four or five play drives. They've become not great on third downs.

Starting point is 00:05:50 37.6 percent. That is obviously not good. You know, the coaches can game plan for this quarterback all week long and then just not know how it's going to turn out when the lights come on on Sundays and what the product is actually going to look like. I think part of this might be you lose some ceiling with Joe Flacco as the quarterback, but it's probably a lot easier to game plan for. Flacco is at least pretty consistent and you know what you're going to get. You're probably not going to get those enormous, like insane plays that Richardson can give you. But outside of week one, how often have we seen it really work? You know, so Flacco at minimum is able to make all the throws.

Starting point is 00:06:41 He can hit any area of the field, short, intermediate, deep. He doesn't really have Anthony's deep arm anymore, but he's got an adequate arm to get the ball downfield. He, you know, he throws with touch and anticipation and everything. But yeah, I think that's probably part of it. They might run a little more of a boring offense, but it's probably better for the coaches than an unpredictable one. Obviously, one of the elephants in the room in this whole thing is Anthony tapping out of the game for that one play in the third quarter last week. I think that kind of becomes the cherry on top of this all because quarterbacks don't do that regardless but his

Starting point is 00:07:26 play to this point didn't really give him a pass on being able to do that if a really good quarterback like a josh allen lamar jackson patrick mahomes or something if they did that it would be weird but it would be swept under the rug so fast. Like it wouldn't be that big of a deal. Those guys have accomplished everything. But Anthony, his play has not resulted in him being able to do those kinds of things. And I think it was shocking for a lot of people because a quarterback really isn't supposed to even think that's an option for him to do.

Starting point is 00:08:04 Anthony has since, you know, said he understands now he can't do that as the quarterback and that it's a bad look and this and that. But basically now here we are. He's been sat down. Shane Steichen and Anthony have both acknowledged. It's pretty much an opportunity now for Anthony to refocus, get better. If I were him, I would learn every single thing and study Joe Flacco like a book. I don't want to use the word scapegoat because I don't think that's super accurate, but if this is all just because of his play, then I don't think that's super valid because Richardson has been a problem and his play has been a problem, but it's not just been on him. In this last game, he was getting pressured quite a bit, which I mean, I'm not going to

Starting point is 00:08:58 gripe about the offensive line because they've been awesome all year. They've not been a problem. And I don't even want to know what this offense would look like if their line hasn't been playing at the level they have been all season, but the receivers aren't getting open. The timing of their breaks has not been what I would say, you know, feasible and conducive to a really progressive passing attack. Guys are dropping stuff. Now, I do think there's been, you know, Miami comes to mind, Houston comes to mind. Defenders are playing really good defense, and they're being aggressive at ripping at the ball. Some of these are drops. Some of them are just being up against a defender that's making a great play on the ball. You could say that comes down to want to, which it does. But my point is from

Starting point is 00:09:47 Shane Steichen and his play calls and allowing all this deep action to either, you know, instituting it or allowing it to continue to happen without having things ironed out from Shane to Anthony's performance to the pass catchers, to the tight ends. The tight end group is like the most anonymous group in the entire roster. Has anyone made any positive notes about tight ends really this year other than Mo Alleycox doing a couple nice things? And that's the guy that we all said leading into the season probably shouldn't even be on the roster because the other tight ends are supposed to be good enough to push him off the roster. So the whole passing game as a whole has

Starting point is 00:10:30 not been great. A.D. Mitchell has not given them what I think they wanted or expected to this point. Now they're going to be patient with him. So we hear when we obviously heard this with Anthony as well. But yeah, that's basically where this whole thing stands right now. So coming up, we're going to talk a little bit more about Joe Flacco and maybe what to expect with him under the helm. All right, listen up, renters. We have all been there feeling like we're burning cash with these rent checks. It's frustrating, right? You want to be paying towards something, but here's the deal. Built Rewards has figured out a way to make rent more rewarding. So say goodbye to the money bonfire and hello to a runner's revolution with Built.

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Starting point is 00:11:55 that's J O I N B I L T.com slash locked on NFL. Make sure to use our URL so that you know that we sent you. Join built.com slash Lockdown NFL to start earning points with your rent payments today. All right, so let's move it along to Joe Flacco. Just to summarize, the Colts, knowing they had a quarterback that was going to have his ebbs and flows and be a roller coaster. They knew it was going to be a long-term thing. They decided apparently that 10 games was the limit. Obviously that makes it feel like it's not just about play, but they have now moved to the 39 year old Joe Flacco.

Starting point is 00:12:39 Like I mentioned at the top of the show, Shane said it's because Joe gives him the best chance to win. I think if you're looking at the pros about it, Flacco's going to be consistent. You know what you're going to get with him. Jim Bob Cooter and Shane Steichen can want him to execute the basic things, and he's going to do it. I think his ball placement on swing balls and screen passes and stuff is really good. I was actually really taken aback by that during training camp,

Starting point is 00:13:12 how well he's able to place the ball on these short passes to keep guys in momentum. I think the short and intermediate game with like Josh Downs is going to help keep the chains rolling. We'll see what Michael Pittman is able to do. He was able to be semi-productive a few catches with a touchdown in that Titans game. Very clear that he, you know, with what Richardson's style is right now, Pittman was just probably not going to be able to be productive. But if Pittman's going to be out there at this level of whatever health he's got right now, Joe is probably the best bet to get something out of him. So you're losing the playmaking ability with Anthony.

Starting point is 00:13:54 You know, you've got a free blitzer and you need a guy to use 4-4 speed to escape and buy you an extra second or two to get rid of the ball. You lose that. That honestly is a super valuable trait that Anthony has. His ability to escape pressure and avoid sacks is something that Joe just doesn't have. Now, you are gaining more timing, anticipation, and functionality of the offense, which is good. Like I said, it's probably going to be a little more of a boring offense, but at least it will be somewhat productive and probably not so Jekyll and Hyde. Just looking at Joe's numbers so far, 65.7% passing. That's a whole 21 points higher than

Starting point is 00:14:39 Anthony's. 6.6 YPA is fine. You probably want that a little closer to 7, 7.5 in an offense like this at least. Seven touchdowns, only two turnovers. That's big. So he's being productive in the red zone. He's getting scores out of it, whether it's field goals or touchdowns. He's getting points out of it, and he's got a 102.2 pass rating. So I don't know if he'll stay at that level throughout the entire season, but what we do know is this guy was super productive in the back half of last year with

Starting point is 00:15:09 the Browns coming off the couch, one comeback player of the year. And through the first half of this season, when the Colts had needed him, he has looked about as good as that. The Colts probably don't have the exact same weapons that the Browns did last year. There's not really an Amari Cooper on this team like he had, or David Njoku. But for what the Colts have, I think Flacco can be productive. The offense, 22-44 on third downs. That's 50% with Joe in there. If it was for the whole season, that would rank third in the NFL right now.

Starting point is 00:15:44 So Joe's dynamite on third downs, which is great. Now, a bunch of those third and longs that they talked about, the Colts being super productive at, you love to eliminate even having those third and 15s or whatever. But I just think with Joe, you're at least knowing what you're going to get. The game plan that you want to run week in and week out is probably more doable and attainable.

Starting point is 00:16:10 Like Anthony's going to give you some of the highest highs like we saw against Houston with those couple plays. But as we've seen, even if it's not just his fault, things weren't productive or consistent with him in there. I'm not saying it's the move I would have made, but if you're looking at this from a Colts lens, from the coach's lens, you know, they, it sounds like Shane Steichen wants to be able to, you know, look the guys in the locker room in the eye and say that he's keeping guys accountable. And no matter how many times the Colts say the tapping out thing had nothing to do with it,

Starting point is 00:16:52 when you couple that with Anthony's play and it not being good enough, I get it. I get why he would feel like perhaps it would be a risk to lose the locker room if that was the case. Now, Shane did not say that. He did acknowledge he had discussion with some of the leaders on the team, whether that was about whether he should do it or just what their gauge was on the whole situation. But I don't think he just did this willy nilly. I think this was well thought out. Would all of us do it? You know, a lot of us probably not. Personally, I don't think I would have done it because this year, we'll get into this more in the next segment. But basically, it just creates a whole new mystery that didn't really need to be there.

Starting point is 00:17:48 So Anthony Richardson has been benched. The word is it's because Joe Flacco gives him the best chance to win. But really, Anthony's numbers have been atrocious. There was the whole tap out thing. Is there a risk of losing the locker room? Who knows? Maybe not. But with Joe Flacco, you at least know you could probably execute the game plan that you're searching for.

Starting point is 00:18:08 So coming up, let's summarize all this. Let's say what it really means and then what it means for the Colts moving forward in 2025 because you go from knowing what your situation at quarterback was probably going to be to now this might as well be any of those years post Andrew Luck where it's just a huge mystery and we have no idea. Get ready to tackle the NFL action with FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook because right now new customers you guys can bet five dollars and get 150 bonus bets if you win. The FanDuel Sportsbook app gives you everything you need to place live bets on the NFL all in one place. So when you get a hunch in the middle of

Starting point is 00:18:50 the game, you can check out the latest stats, if you like play-by-play, and so much more on the same page where you place your bets. Just visit FanDuel.com to join today. You'll get started with $150 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. That's FanDuel.com. Never waste a hunch and make every moment more with FanDuel, an official sportsbook partner of the NFL. Okay, so after 10 games, the Colts have decided that, you know, at the very least, they are not interested in Anthony Richardson being their quarterback in 2024. So in 2025, what does this mean? So Joe Flacco is a free agent after this season, but you have abridged Anthony Richardson's experience

Starting point is 00:19:37 so much now to win this whole season, you probably would have had a really good idea of what you wanted to do moving forward if you're the Colts. You know if you want to continue pursuing him and being your quarterback and build around him and keep it rolling, or

Starting point is 00:20:02 if you probably need to move on and look in a different direction Flacco to another one-year deal and that's fine and then you just have a battle between Flacco and Anthony and training camp I guess or instead of Flacco there are other free agents you know Sam Darnold is 30 right now you can get a guy like that who has starting experience in the NFL and has all of these guys at one point or the other have done well. You could do something like that and get a bridge quarterback. I think that makes everybody here want to throw up because we've

Starting point is 00:20:36 already been through that. So it's just like, what are we doing here? You bring in one of those guys to compete with Anthony in the summer and the best man wins. That's not much of a plan because as we've seen now, if you have more than one quarterback, you don't have one at all. We all know that now. Like not everybody's Andrew Luck or Peyton Manning. Not everyone's Patrick Mahomes or this or that. There are bona fide stars and studs in the league, but I think at this point you got to, when you're taking a quarterback, that's going to be for the future.

Starting point is 00:21:10 You probably need a guy to get a guy who's got more of a background that I don't want to say guarantees success, but Anthony Richardson, if they have given up on him, it was, it turned out to be a bad gamble because everything in the guy's body of work said, like, you maybe don't take a chance on this. He had very little experience starting. He had never been an accurate passer, but they bought into them being able to fix those things and getting him up to speed and being productive.

Starting point is 00:21:41 So at this point, you have to reevaluate how you do things. Who knows who's going to be there to do that? Because if you've moved on from Anthony, is Chris Ballard still there? Is Shane Steichen still there? You don't know. But then you look towards the draft and it's not like an awesome draft this year. Like it has been in recent years. You're looking at guys like Cam Ward, Shaduwa Sanders, Jalen Milrow, Carson Beck, Quinn Ewers, Garrett Nussmeier. Those are all the guys right now who are going to be getting like first round consideration. It's like, do you want to draft a quarterback in the first round for the second time in three years? That's what this whole situation has created.

Starting point is 00:22:20 I think you would probably feel even better if the Colts were like, yeah, we're going to give him, Anthony, like a few weeks to calm down, recenter himself, and he can earn this spot back. But they don't intend on him starting again this season. So you have ended the critical reps that you said he needed. That's not going to happen this year, at least not to plan. Now, if Joe gets hurt or something, then Anthony's back on the field. But you now no longer have all of the evaluation of Anthony that you said you wanted this whole time. So your options moving forward into 2025, I mean, it would help to know who's going to be making those decisions

Starting point is 00:23:08 if Chris Ballard and Shane Steichen are still going to be there, but if not, you're probably looking at adding either a veteran bridge quarterback like one of the ones I mentioned to compete with Anthony next year, or you're probably drafting someone, but it seems incredibly doubtful that they say, okay,

Starting point is 00:23:27 Anthony Richardson gets the keys again in 2025. Let's do this. Because they were, I don't want to say all chips in on Anthony and this season. I mean, they got a capable backup in Joe Flacco. But there was no competition. They were fully going in with Anthony Richardson this year. And I would be shocked if that was the case next year, because all their actions from this week show that that that is not something that they necessarily believe in.

Starting point is 00:23:56 So what do they do? Let's stay tuned. It's insane to even think that there is a game coming up on Sunday night against the Minnesota Vikings. So we'll see how all that goes. But thank you guys for making Locked on Colts your first listen today. Now for your second listen, please go find the new Locked on NFL Now with two shows every day. First, you're going to get the madman Tyler Rowland,

Starting point is 00:24:18 who kicks off your morning with a double shot of NFL espresso. And then you can stop by the barbershop with Tony Wiggins for some real NFL talk by locked on NFL on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you guys want to become a lockdown Colts insider and chat with us directly about crazy stuff that's going on this, this week, you know, your, your family doesn't want to talk about it, whatever, come to us, become an insider, shoot us some messages. We'll chat with you about this whole thing.

Starting point is 00:24:45 You can follow the link that's in our show notes there. If you don't already, follow at Locked on Colts, at JakeArthurNFL and at ZachX2 on Twitter. We're also on TikTok and Instagram now as well. Also subscribe on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts. We would love those ratings and reviews as well. That helps us immensely. And with that, you guys have a great night and we will see you guys tomorrow.

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Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis Colts: Shane Steichen, Anthony Richardson, Joe Flacco Reveal Thoughts On QB Situation

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