The Josh Innes Show - The Anthony Richardson Saga

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

The Colts have named Daniel Jones starting QB. Daniel Jones sucks. We know this. The internet is extremely upset that Anthony Richardson didn't get the gig. I've never seen a guy treated like Richardson. The internet and most media people view him as almost a charity case. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right. So now that we've done a full breakdown of the Saints quarterback position, which has completely wasted your time, and I apologize for that. Now we move on to something that's actually a legitimate story that people are discussing, and that is the quarterback position of the Indianapolis Colts. Before we do that, Cleveland decided to roll Joe Flacco, which I enjoy. Like they have 14 quarterbacks to choose from in camp, and they're like, you know what? Our best bet is Joe Flacco, which is going to have some. kind of heat behind it because old white dude keeps the job over young black dudes. That will probably be the angle that you see here, although I know Dylan Gabriel is there as well,

but like it's going to be a Shadur thing and the internet is such that everything is racial. So old white guy gets the starting quarterback job over younger black guys and it's a whole thing. But that one I haven't heard a ton about. Mostly I think because Shadur is hurt. So that hasn't been a huge story. The bigger story that's got people worked up as Anthony Richardson. And this Anthony Richardson is a fascinating story because he's spoken about like he's a charity case. People in the media and fans talk about him like he is somebody that lives on food stamps or something and is mistreated. Like he gets that kind of coverage.

First, let's play a couple commercials and let's get into this. I learned this last year when I was dumping on Anthony Richardson early in the season. So I went to, after I got fired, Jillie and I went to Indianapolis for, I guess, was it week one? I guess it was week one or week two when the Texans played the Colts in Indianapolis. And we were right there to have the full-on Anthony Richardson experience, which is, dude can sling one 60 yards in the air for a strike for a touchdown and it looks great and gets you excited. and then he can throw five or six balls in the dirt that aren't even close to a receiver. And I started texting about that or tweeting about that during that game, which is like, Anthony Richardson is not good.

You can tell me Anthony Richardson is good. You can try to convince me that Anthony Richardson is good. Anthony Richardson is not very good. But everybody wants him to be very good, but he's just not. And that's okay. He's not. The Colts probably at this point wasted a top five pick on Anthony Richardson. Now, it all depends on how you view it.

I view it as a wasted draft pick because it looks like this guy is never going to amount too much as you're starting quarterback. That is because you drafted a guy in the top five who was not a finished product at quarterback was a dude that kind of relied on just being an athlete at the position and you thought you could draft him and teach him. And it turns out that's not the route you need to take in the NFL, right? So it's backfired on you. Another group of people would say that he was let down by the team and the team did

him wrong and they haven't done right by him in the way they've handled him or what they've put around him or how they've treated him or the way they've benched him, how they went to Flacco. That was the thing last year when the people went nuts over Flacco getting, becoming the starter over Anthony Richardson. And then, of course, Flacco didn't play particularly well when he did it either. And look, it is a racial thing. Is the entire thing a racial thing?

No. But you've got young black quarterback, raw young black quarterback who the Internet, and social media and the culture views as someone who's been dicked around and shit on by the team and hasn't been given a real opportunity to be the starter. And then you see this one. It's one thing when Joe Flacco, a guy who's won a Super Bowl and as a backup quarterback over the last couple of years, has come in and done huge things. When he was in Cleveland, he came in and did huge things.

And what the Colts wasn't great last year, but you get the point. But now it's an interesting case study because Daniel Jones is also a, known failure in the NFL. He's had a longer leash to fail in New York, but he played in a much tougher city. New York is obviously a much tougher city than Indianapolis. Indianapolis's child's play relative to New York. You're under the microscope the second you get the job. Daniel Jones has been shit on in his entire life, and he deserves it because he sucks, right? I'm not going to sit there and tell you that I feel sorry for Daniel Jones that he was drafted as high as he was with the Giants and has had a shitty career. And he's played for shitty teams,

and he's one of the reasons why the teams are shitty. So I don't feel bad for him. And nobody feels bad for Daniel Jones. The issue I run into is nobody feels bad for Daniel Jones, nor should they. Yet the world seems to feel bad for Anthony Richardson. And the world seems to feel bad for Anthony Richardson. And the world seems to think that he's being mistreated and he's been handled poorly and that the cults are a joke of a situation.

The biggest mistake the Colts made, if you are looking for something, to circle and say this is what they did wrong for Anthony Richardson. The biggest, everybody talks about all the shit that's gone wrong for him and how the team handled this poorly, this poorly, how they put him in a bad spot here. The worst thing they did for Anthony Richardson is draft Anthony Richardson, particularly where they drafted him. You take a project dude in the top five and hope for the best, and then you have a revolving door at coach, you've hired and fired guys, and this is what you end up with.

I don't feel bad for Anthony Richardson, but somehow he's become a pity case. If Anthony Richardson were a dufous white dude like Daniel Jones, who every picture looks like he just saw a UFO, if you replace the two guys and you put Daniel Jones in Indianapolis, he'd be a laughing stock. We'd make fun of him like we do in New York. No one is breaking down the things that went wrong around Daniel Jones in New York. All people say is Daniel Jones sucked in New York. No one's saying poor guy had this coach and this coach is an apt and his offensive coordinator sucks and the players around him suck and it's a mess and the ownership and blah, blah, blah.

But for Anthony Richardson, it's literally everyone else's fault but Anthony Richardson in the eyes of the internet and the eyes of the fanboys. Like he is a fascinating case of a guy who is a charity case. these people on the internet, the internet world, the social media world, particularly, seems to think that this guy is the most mistreated human on the planet where, look, we threw away Baker Mayfield in Cleveland, didn't we? Like, we look at Baker Mayfield, when Baker Mayfield sucked. And you talk about being in bad situations. Baker Mayfield and Cleveland was a dreadful situation. Almost anybody in Cleveland is a bad situation. like we've talked about the number of offensive coordinators

Baker Mayfield has had nobody felt bad for that guy when he sucked in Cleveland when Baker Mayfield sucked in Cleveland nobody was like oh poor Baker Mayfield you know what it was Baker Mayfield sucks get rid of him bring somebody else in and that guy's had legit excuse I was reading a story the other day I think he's on like his 10th is Baker mayfield on his 10th offensive coordinator guy hadn't been in the league 10 years guys 30 years old he's been in the league since what year did Baker come in, 2014, 2015? How long has Baker Mayfield been in the league? Since 2018, Baker Mayfield came into the league with Cleveland, 2018, and Baker Mayfield

has had 10 offensive coordinators, some ridiculous number like that. That is stupid. But Baker Mayfield, because he's kind of cocky, kind of arrogant, wears the headbands, was cocky at Oklahoma. People look at Baker Mayfield, and they say, oh, tough shit. even though he went to the most difficult place for a young quarterback to play in the history of the NFL. There has never been a worse situation for a quarterback than playing quarterback in Cleveland in this century. There is not one place that is worse. It is Cleveland. It may not be as tough to play in Cleveland in terms of media scrutiny and everything else to say New York,

but it is the toughest fucking place to play for being a quarterback because everything fails there. The coaches get fired. The coordinators get fired. How many starting quarterbacks now of the Browns had in the last 25 years? Like 40? Like 40-something dudes that have taken snaps as the starting quarterback for the Browns. But Baker goes there, starts early, the team sucks, they don't win a ton of games, and nobody had a problem shitting on Baker Mayfield.

Just run him off. He's terrible. He blows. Yet Anthony Richardson, people are petrified to be critical of Anthony Richardson. And it's everybody else's fault. Now, the one thing I will say is this. Baker Mayfield was given a shit ton of rope in Cleveland, started a lot of games in Cleveland, and you got to see over the course of, I mean, how many games did Baker Mayfield start?

13, 16, 16, 14 in his four years there in Cleveland. So Baker Mayfield had the opportunity to play through a lot of this shit. If you're looking for one thing to be critical about for the Colts, there's two. There's two big points to be critical. about as it relates to the cults. One, they shouldn't have drafted the guy where they drafted him because he's a project and that was a mistake on their part. If you were going to draft a project, you have to deal with the ups and downs of having

a project quarterback, which they have done a poor job of. That is very fair. The reality is when you look at a Baker-Mayfield, there are other guys that have had ups and downs in their careers, but I use Baker-Mayfield as an example because he's relatively recent. Baker-Mayfield got to play four years and figure out if he sucked or not. Then they got rid of him, and then he had the research. in Tampa. And Baker was closer to a finished product when he got to Cleveland than Anthony

Richardson was in Indianapolis. That's pretty obvious. But Baker Mayfield got to roll out and play. And I don't believe Baker Mayfield got to roll out and play because he's a white guy. But Baker Mayfield got to roll out and figure out if he sucked and the team got to figure out if they wanted him and they thought he sucked. The thing that the Colts have done poorly, and I will agree with people on this, is that Anthony Richardson has pulled in, he's taken out, he's put in, he's taken out, he's put in, he's taken out. But that's also a statement about the NFL where you don't have a ton of time as a head coach to figure out if your team is good or not.

Their head coach right now is Shane Steichen. Shane Steichen is in a position where he needs to win football games, right? Who gives him the best chance of winning football games? Shane Steichen can't sit there and go, well, you know, I really need to see if Anthony Richardson can develop. No, his career is on the line. Shane Stuyken could very realistically be a guy that's gone. He's been the coach in Indianapolis for two years.

He is 17 and 17. He's fine. Shane Stuyken is in his third year in the NFL, and Shane Stuyken needs to win football games. This isn't hard. So who gives him the best shot to win games? In the same way, if you're in Cleveland right now, you need to win football games. It's not your job to throw Shudur Sanders out there and say,

have at it, pal, let's learn. It is your job to win football games now to try to save your career. Brian Dable, I told you that I think Jackson Darts going to be a rock star. I think Jackson DART is going to be a stud in the league. I'll put my name on it. I'll plant my flag and say that I think Jackson Darts going to be a rock star. I love him. I'd love to see him play right now as a young dude in New York.

And there's been a lot of guys who've played right out of the gates. Some have been hurt by it. Some have fought through it and whatever, right? And maybe Russ Wilson won't be the quarterback all year. I'd say that's a probability, a high probability that Russell will. Wilson's not going to be the quarterback. But Brian Dable should have been fired last year. He knows he's on borrowed time

and the only way he keeps his job is to win. He can't go out there and throw Jackson Dart out there and go, hey, learn on the job. He doesn't have that luxury. And he doesn't have that luxury because he has to win. So who gives him the best chance of winning? Somehow it's Russ Wilson. But that's why Russ Wilson's playing instead of a Jackson Dart.

And that's why in Cleveland, that's why Joe Flacco is playing. dudes have to win games. These coaches will get fired and hired and fired and hired very quickly. So you're out there and you're trying to win. Shane Stuyken's trying to win. He's not out there hoping that Anthony Richardson can figure the whole thing out on the fly. He needs someone that can get him to wins. And somehow that's Daniel fucking Jones. I don't know how that's the game. I am intrigued. Now, Daniel Jones probably really does suck, just like Anthony Richardson probably really does suck. But I,

be intrigued. Like if Anthony Richardson went to a new place and got a new opportunity, what would that be? It's the same thing as like you see Tray Lance. I'm in, or Justin Fields, rather, like Justin Fields with the Jets. Justin Fields given another opportunity, what will Justin Fields do in that spot? I'd be interested to see what Anthony Richardson does in another opportunity given full-on opportunity somewhere. I'm intrigued by that in the same way that I'm intrigued to see what Daniel Jones does at the next spot. Because going back to our talk about Baker Mayfield. Baker Mayfield was left for dead. Baker Mayfield goes from being

high draft pick, Cleveland Browns, to going to like Carolina and the Rams as a backup. And then gets another shot in Tampa and he's played well and gone to the playoffs twice in Tampa and he's kind of found himself again and he's become a rock solid player. So I'd like to

see what would happen if Anthony Richardson went somewhere else. But the idea that Anthony Richardson is some sort of victim and the entire discussion online is tinged in races. Not necessarily racism, but race. It's a huge factor. If Anthony Richardson were just some white dude, the internet would make fun of him and say he sucks, get

rid of him, he's ass. But because he's a young black guy, people act like he's been mistreated in a situation with the Colts. I don't think he's been mistreated. Like, I don't think he's abused or something like that by the Colts. I think what the Colts have done is I think they've handled certain situations poorly, but most notably the situation they handled poorly was the drafting of Anthony Richardson to begin with.

Anthony Richardson should not have been drafted where he was drafted because Anthony Richardson isn't very good and he wasn't ready to be drafted at that position. So you draft a guy that's a project and then you don't take the time to help him work through being a project. That's where I think the Colts failed the guy. But I also don't think he's any good. So at what point do you just let a guy keep going out there and sucking? Like, oh, wow, he completed a 60-yard bump. The whole Anthony Richardson experience happened in that game I went to last year against the Texans. because Anthony Richardson would go out there and throw an interception.

He'd throw a ball in the dirt, and you'd go, wow, this guy can't complete a five-yard pass. But then when the Texans look like they're going to pull away, dude throws a 70-yard strike for a touchdown, and you're like, shit, the guy's got a cannon. I can see why guys are turned on by this dude. Anyway, more to come.