Dissecting the Colts' Failed Anthony Richardson Experiment With Steven Ruiz

0:00Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. Sheil Kapadia here joined by Steven Ruiz and we had some breaking news in the NFL. The Colts naming Daniel Jones their starting quarterback for the 2025 season. It is not Anthony Richardson. We're going to get into all aspects of this move. What it means for Anthony Richardson's future. Are the Colts a poorly run franchise? Do they have any hope with Daniel Jones in 2025? We're going to get into all that, Ruiz. But first, just were you surprised? We talked, you know, we've talked about this quarterback competition in the offseason. When you heard the news, were you surprised at the announcement?

0:40Steven Ruiz:I was definitely surprised by the timing. It was one of those situations where you get the text, the tweet alert, and you have to double check and make sure you weren't getting like fooled by a fake account or anything. I had to check Schefter's account, Rappaport's account, all the insider's accounts. But yeah, the timing of it is what threw me off the most. Yeah, you know, they were hinting a little bit about it, but I wasn't sure until they announced it that they were actually going to go with Daniel Jones. So we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we are going to hit on every angle of this story.

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2:56All right, we're back on The Ringer NFL Show. Rui's general reaction. Let's start there. You hear the news. It's Daniel Jones. It's not Anthony Richardson. Where does your mind go immediately in regards to this story?

3:10Steven Ruiz:Wow, Richardson must suck. If you're losing to Daniel Jones in 2025, a quarterback competition to Daniel Jones, I feel like I wanted to see Richardson start, but I'm not sure it would have mattered if it was close enough where something like, according to reports, Steichen ultimately decided based on who could run the offense better, who could take care of stuff pre-snap. So if it was close enough in terms of physical on-field play for that to be the deciding factor. I think it says more about Richardson than it says about Steikin's ability to evaluate quarterbacks. Yeah, you kind of wonder, like, was this an actual competition?

3:46Well, you know, what did Richardson have to do to win it? Was it just like, it's probably going to be Daniel Jones unless Richardson is amazing. But I got to be honest, my first reaction, and this won't surprise you because I've ripped them before, but was just that, like the Colts are an unserious organization and I don't think they take enough heat for it. And we'll get to, I'm not saying Richardson is blameless or anything like that. I think what you said is true, but, and they have more information than I do. That's a caveat as well. But can we just recap how they got to this decision? Like they draft Anthony Richardson high.

4:20He has 13 career college starts. And what was the book on Anthony Richardson? He's 21 years old. You know what? He's got to go to the right place. You got to mold him. He's got physical tools, but he's not a finished product. Like this Dom, this was 90 % of the Anthony Richardson conversation before the draft. Then they draft him. They have no plan. Chris Ballard has literally gone on the record with the athletic saying, well, you know, when you draft a guy, you feel pressure to start him right away. It's like, are you serious? Like, well, what are we doing? The pressure to start him right away.

4:50So they start him. He starts four games, gets injured. 2024, he comes back. He completes under 50 % of his passes. He has the whole situation where he asks out of a game, gets benched after that, comes back. And then this offseason, the most hilarious offseason storyline, they're telling everybody, we want to light a fire under Anthony Richardson. We're going to bring in some competition. You know I was skeptical about that storyline at the time. And then the competition is Daniel freaking Jones. And you're paying him$14 million for one year, Daniel Jones. So I just look at all that. And again, I'm not saying Richardson is blameless.

5:29We'll get to that in a second here, but they had no plan when they drafted the guy and they got to take heat for that. There's no evidence of them understanding that you need a support system when you draft a quarterback like that. There's no evidence of them having a plan at any point throughout the entire process. And I swear, I don't think it's happened yet as of this recording, but they're going to be talking about Andrew Luck. this way. Well, you know, it still goes back to, it's going to be 2037 and they're going to be, well, you know, Andrew Locke, that surprise retirement. It's like, I'm tired of so many excuses with them.

5:58They've gone four straight seasons without making the playoffs. And I just want to start discussing them more as a poorly run franchise. Do you disagree with any of that?

6:06Steven Ruiz:No, I think that's fair. I think we're almost up to a decade of Chris Ballard running this team. And just to go back to your other point, like where was this pressure that he's speaking of coming from. Like fans, I've never heard a competent GM refer to pressure from fans and bozos like us who just talk into a mic for a week and allow that to influence not only your decision making in terms of drafting a quarterback in the first place, because he had that one quote where he's like, you draft the wrong guy and they're going to get you up out of here, you're going to get fired. Okay, you can't be making decisions based on losing your job.

6:37Steven Ruiz:And then secondly, you can't craft a developmental plan for your quarterback, especially one, like a unique prospect like Anthony Richardson, you can't craft your developmental plan based around what fans are going to say and whether they want to see him right away or not. So I'm with you there. But at the same time, I do feel like this does fall back on Richardson. We can get into the blame game later. Okay, let's get to that. Who do you kind of blame more? Because I do think that's a key question in all this. And I know you're writing about it for the ringer. So go ahead. You think it falls more on Richardson maybe?

7:11Steven Ruiz:Yeah, I will say that because I think people are going to draw conclusions based on how Richardson's career has gone and they're going to go, well, look at the data. He didn't complete passes at a high rate in college. He didn't really play. The numbers didn't wow you. I know he had tools, but you can't be fooled by tools. It doesn't really apply to the NFL level and are going to go and draw the wrong conclusions from it. Because you could have said that about Josh Allen, who just won MVP last year. You could have said that about Lamar Jackson, who completed under 60 % of his passes in Bobby Petrino's offense the year before he was drafted, and he's won two MVPs and could have won a third last year.

7:44Steven Ruiz:So I think the main takeaway for me, at least, has been all the stuff that we've heard about Anthony Richardson off the field. And you can blame the Colts for letting that stuff get out. And it started trickling out right when he was benched last year, when he tapped out of the Houston game in week eight. But that's the one thing that you can't really control for when you're like us and you're evaluating from the outside looking in. You could say the Colts could have done their due diligence, figured out what his work ethic was like, compared it to the other toolsy quarterbacks that have worked out.

8:11Steven Ruiz:Because by all accounts, Josh Allen is just a psychopath when it comes to preparation and he's ultra competitive and he pours his heart into football. We haven't seen that from Anthony Richardson. And by his own admission, he didn't work hard enough over those first two years and he set out to change that this year. But you're not going to be able to overturn probably a decade worth of habits that he's built up during his football career going back to high school in a year. And even if you are, even if he is this hardworking, studious quarterback now, it's not going to pay off in two months. It's going to take a year.

8:47Steven Ruiz:So I tend to put it on the lack of work ethic, but I guess you can pin that back on the Colts for not doing enough work evaluation-wise to figure that out. I feel like it's the key sort of big picture question in all of this, especially when you consider, how old is he now? 22 years old? He's still younger than... He's three days younger than Cam Ward, the first overall pick this year. It's crazy. So it's a great question. And it's the NFL, but it's also other sports as well. When you have a talented, young prospect, player, whatever, how much accountability is on them to figure it out with...

9:27And it is still vague, I will say. I'm with you. You read all these reports and they're kind of hinting at it. well, lack of preparation, is it work ethic, those types of things, how much of that falls on a 21-year-old? You can make the case, well, if you're accepting the paycheck, it falls on you. You should know what you're doing. And how much of it falls onto the organization where they should know the person they're drafting is not a finished product. To me, and I feel like I'm making excuses for him. And I agree with a lot of what you said. At some point, he's got to take accountability. He's got to be more accurate, more durable, put the work in, all those things.

10:07At the same time, if I knew that the Colts had a plan and it was like, no, the day this guy comes in the building, this is going to be his mentor. This is going to be his quarterback's coach. This is who we're going to have him go to if he needs anything. We're going to make it clear he has to be in the building at this time. He's got to watch film. He's got to meet with the receivers like Matthew Stafford and Cooper Cup and Puka Nakua in the cafeteria at 6 a.m. or whatever they were. He's got to do all those things that come with being a professional. If I felt like, hey, they were doing all those things and Richardson was like, no, I'm good.

10:41Like, I don't want to do that. Then I would feel better placing the blame on him. But when I zoom out, like if it was a different organization, one that I had more faith in or confidence in or had a track record, then I'd probably be more inclined to put the blame on Richardson. But when I look at them and it feels like they're flying by the seat of their pants with all these quarterback decisions that they're making, I'm going to put some of the blame on them that they didn't do those things right away. And they're admitting to mistakes now. And like you said, they played him right away because of what pressure in Indianapolis?

11:14Like when you have some of the best job security of any GM in the NFL, I mean, what are we talking about here? I can't accept that. But I do think that's at the core of this question is when a young player in professional sports doesn't learn those habits right away, how much is on the person and how much is on the organization.

11:32Steven Ruiz:Yeah, I think that's totally fair. And maybe I'm being a little harsh, like just pinning it on him, but I do think there was some failure from the player. But you can also pin it on the plan that the Colts did have. I know we're saying they didn't have a plan, but clearly the plan was to throw him in the deep end and see if he sinks or swim and hope that he can learn how to swim eventually. But the way they used him early on, especially, and I get it from Steichen's perspective. If you're going to play the kid and you're going to want him to get as many reps as possible quickly, you've got to design the offense around what he does well now.

12:05Steven Ruiz:And for him, that was very obviously the run game and using him as an option threat, using him in the red zone as a runner, which ultimately led to his injuries. And the reason why he only has 377 dropbacks to his name. And so I feel like Stikin was kind of looking for the best of both worlds here. He wanted to play the young guy early, but he also wanted to win games. And that came at the expense of Anthony Richardson's health. I think we could safely say now, because both times he got hurt, he was running the football. So maybe if Stikin would have approached it differently and been like, no, we're not going to spam quarterback runs just because that's what you do well.

12:42Steven Ruiz:And that will help us win games in the present. Let's build an offense that's going to help you develop. And maybe you're going to go through some of these growing pains, but it's going to help in the end. And maybe two, three years down the line, your game is going to be totally different from what it looks like now. And I think that's the shortcut they kind of took with him. That's hard too, though, because I could see a scenario where they're doing that and they're losing games. And we're coming on here going, why aren't they using Anthony Richardson in the run game? He's a beast in the run game.

13:08You know, they should. Why aren't they using him in the red zone? So you're right. It's just sort of differing priorities in the NFL world where a coach might be trying to win games. A GM might be trying to save their job. Other people might be saying, hey, let's make sure his development as a passer is the priority here. And when those things aren't aligned, again, I think that's when you see what happened here with the Colts. If it's a different organization where there's more stability, people have been around, everyone's on the same page. I think they could have some of those conversations that you're alluding to probably easier than maybe they did have here.

13:42All right, let's take a break. We come back. The Colts still do have a season to play, apparently, with Daniel Jones as their quarterback. What's that going to look like? We'll get into that. And then also just kind of what does the future look like now for Anthony Richardson? Football's almost here, which means it's time to start thinking about how the season will end. That's why FanDuel created a whole new holiday, Futures Day, happening on Tuesday, August 26th. It's 24 hours of deals on your season-long picks. A day when you decide who will win the division, take home the MVP, or take the whole thing.

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15:46Now he said, like, this is our guy. He's not going to be on a short leash. Coaches say that all the time. So we'll see. But he said Jones, the guys have taken to him. He's a great communicator with the guys. You can see that veteran presence out there. So I'm excited. I'm excited for that. So that was via ESPN and The Athletic. So Daniel Jones and Nicole Truiz, how does this season go for Indianapolis?

16:11Steven Ruiz:I mean, I don't think the outlook changes too drastically for them. I thought they were like an 8-9 win team if Anthony Richardson was serviceable. I think with Daniel Jones, the ceiling has definitely been lowered, but I think the floor has been raised a little bit. But I get what the gaps they're trying to fill in by replacing Richardson. You want a guy, a quarterback that can make the layups. You want a quarterback that's not going to complete 55 % of his passes. You want a quarterback who can complete 64%, 65 % of his passes. And Steichen, when he was asked about Daniel Jones' track record, he mentioned the fact that he had set a Giants record for completion percentage in 2022.

16:47Steven Ruiz:So I feel like that's a big deal for him specifically. The problem is, one, you're losing something in the run game without Richardson out there. Two, you're losing that downfield ability based on Daniel Jones' track record as a downfield thrower, especially in recent years after the neck injury. So I think that this offense is going to be very easy to defend, and that's going to kind of hurt the foundation of it, which is the run game. That's what Shane Steichen is known for, scheming up the run game. They have Jonathan Taylor, obviously. but if teams don't have to back off and there are no deterrence in terms of like downfield threats and there's no deterrent in terms of a run threat i know daniel jones can run a little bit but he has lost some of that ability with the injuries over the last couple of years and it's nothing compared to anthony richardson i think you're just looking at a very vanilla offense that is there are no like obvious glaring weaknesses outside of daniel jones of course but there are no obvious strengths so i i don't see how you can expect this team to be any better than like the 20th ranked offense.

17:44Steven Ruiz:And if that's the case, I'm looking at the defensive depth chart. I'm not excited about the defense either. It seems like the ceiling for this team is mediocre. Yeah, I honestly think you presented sort of the bullish case for Daniel Jones and the offense. Honestly, when you said 20th, I'm like, I'm pretty sure Shane Steichen might sign up for that right now. I just feel like you look at Daniel Jones, early in his career, I saw the flashes. Even when things weren't going right, You said, this guy can throw the football. He has athleticism. He's not afraid to throw into tight windows. He's not afraid to push the ball downfield.

18:19And so even when the numbers were bad, I could kind of buy the argument that, no, there's something there. And in 2022, he has the career year. Such a big part of that, though, is what you're talking about was the run game. And I feel like Shane Steichen referring to 2022, it's like, I feel like anybody who watches him in 2022 and watched him last year, those are two totally different quarterbacks. And it's not his fault. He had a neck injury. He had other injuries. And we see this in the NFL all the time that the injuries take their toll and you're a different player. I really think unless he's just feels healthier than he has ever has right now, maybe that's possible, but I just feel like he's not that guy anymore.

18:57I mean, the last two years, he ranks 34th out of 34 quarterbacks in EPA per pass play. If we look at just last year, Richardson was 36th out of 36. Daniel Jones was 34th, which brings me back to the plan, Colts. What are we doing here with these two guys? But I just don't know that he's going to bring the things to the table that the Colts might think he's going to bring. You mentioned it. The run game takes a hit here. Now, maybe he's more reliable in terms of, like you said, the toughness, the pre-snap stuff. I mean, I don't know.

19:28Steven Ruiz:Even that, I don't know. I feel like there's this idea of Daniel Jones, And it goes back to him as a prospect playing for David Cutcliffe, like having the Manning shine on him. And you're like, oh, he's that type of quarterback. But when you watched him, even at Duke, it was like, no, this guy is like a scrambler who reads stuff out, needs an extra beat or two to read stuff out and throws it late. And he'll take some chances down the field and he's kind of reckless, like he'll throw into coverage. And he's still largely that same quarterback. I know Dayball, especially in 2022, was kind of able to reign him in a little bit.

19:57Steven Ruiz:But it was at the expense of what I felt like was a strength, which was that willingness to push the ball downfield. And he had some ability to do it. I don't know if he still has it. But in terms of being an adult at quarterback, being an adult under center, you go back to even the Packers game. This past game, this past weekend where apparently Jones did enough to lock down the job. On the first drive, he completes a pass to the flat and moves the chains. Any quarterback in the NFL would make that pass. But after that, he's late on a quick game concept The pass rush gets to him and bats the ball And he's not able to get it to a wide open receiver in the flat On the next play, he comes out a little too early When he's dropping back and he fumbles the snap On the next play, on third down, he misses a wide open Tyler Warren down the field If you're going to sign up for that, why not sign up for Anthony Richardson?

20:46Steven Ruiz:At least you'll get some cool throws along the way I'm with you I think the idea that he sets a high floor or that he's that, like he's not, you know, Kirk Cousins or whoever you want to compare to, like at this stage, I don't think he's been that guy. I mean, he took sacks. The one big difference, I think, could be the sack numbers that he takes compared to Richardson. I know we've discussed that before, that Richardson, in terms of strengths, maybe his biggest strength was avoiding sacks, which is hard for young quarterbacks. And he did that at a very high level. I mean, two years ago with a bad offensive line, Daniel Jones was sacked on over 15 % of his dropbacks.

21:22It was crazy early in his career. He was fumbling all over the place. And so I think some of the strengths, again, that he had earlier aren't there anymore. I think some of the weaknesses could be pronounced here. I mean, the Giants had no answer at quarterback and they were just like, see ya, you know, last season.

21:38Steven Ruiz:He got benched for Tommy DeVito and Tyron Taylor within the last calendar year. That's crazy. I mean, that says it all. He got benched for Tommy Cutlets and then he got 14 mil from the Colts and now he's going to be starting week one. That's crazy. I think it's going to go horribly for the Colts. If I'm being honest, I think that the other thing is durability with Jones. And again, that's not always his fault, but like, what are the odds that Daniel Jones is really the Colts quarterback for 17 games? I think it's very low. So whether it's injury, whether it's, hey, they lose some games and I can just see the headline at Indianapolis, you know, week six, Anthony's really, you know, these six weeks have been big for him.