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There’s a saying among football coaches that seems applicable to the current Anthony Richardson situation in Indianapolis:
Potential will get you fired.
That is to say, handing a starting job to a player on the basis of as-yet-unrealized potential will often lead to losses, which will absolutely get a coaching staff canned. Even when the entire organization may agree that a young player needs in-game reps, a team’s head coach is almost never given an exemption from the one firm requirement of their job: winning.
For this reason — and also because a quarterback’s performance directly affects every other player on the roster — Shane Steichen did the thing that probably had to be done while his team is still in the postseason conversation. Joe Flacco will be starting for the Colts on Sunday night at Minnesota and presumably in the weeks beyond.
Statistically, Flacco has outproduced Richardson by an outrageous margin this season — to such an extent that it actually feels a little bit cruel to include the numbers in the newsletter. Here are the facts:
👍 Flacco: 65.7 cmp%, 7 TD, 1 INT, 1 FMB, 102.2 rating
🥶 Richardson: 44.4 cmp%, 4 TD, 7 INT, 6 FMB, 57.2 rating
We should note that Indy’s offense is not exactly designed to produce completion percentages of 70-plus. Richardson has been a long-range bomber, a remarkable outlier this year in terms of average depth of target (13.3). But obviously Flacco is operating in the same offense and with the same receiving corps — also among the leaders in ADOT (9.7) — and he’s still completing over 65% of his throws.
Richardson of course provides a rushing dimension that’s entirely absent from Flacco’s game, but it hasn’t always led to positive outcomes. It’s the drive-stalling hiccups that led to his benching as much as the accuracy issues, as Nate Tice has mentioned.
In fantasy terms, Flacco’s elevation is a huge win for Josh Downs and Michael Pittman Jr., who were nearly unplayable while their quarterback was only completing 10 passes per week. Both can now be viewed as WR2s with matchup-tilting potential. Jonathan Taylor is a sneaky winner as well, with Richardson no longer competing for goal-line rushing responsibilities. Generally speaking, an improvement at QB is a win for everyone — receivers, running backs, kickers, long-snappers, etc.
Let’s be careful not to dismiss Richardson as a down-the-road fantasy contributor, by the way. He’s still just 22 years old with exactly 10 NFL starts (and 13 collegiate starts) on his resume, and he possesses a level of athleticism that we basically never see at quarterback. He already has a highlight reel of impossible throws, too. For Richardson, it’s a reset and a backward step — not an ending.
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