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There were things Shane Steichen and the Colts knew about Anthony Richardson before they drafted him at No. 4 back in April. Then, there were things they would have to see for themselves later on. And one of those, serendipitously enough, showed itself in the first quarter of Indianapolis’s first preseason game, on the road against the Bills, three weeks ago.
On the Colts’ fourth play of the game, and their third throw, the rookie took a shotgun snap, and the Bills’ Greg Rousseau came unblocked into the backfield. Richardson leaned back and pump-faked to freeze Rousseau, then threw the ball off his back foot in the direction of slot receiver Isaiah McKenzie. The problem: Richardson was off-balance enough for the ball to sail inside and high, and into the hands of Buffalo corner Dane Jackson.
Afterward, Richardson conceded that he needed, in that spot, to either give McKenzie a better ball or know well enough to understand the difficulty of the throw, and just throw it into the stands. But, at that moment, that wasn’t what Steichen was thinking about.
“In my head,” Steichen said last week, “I was like, .”
From the outside, how Richardson rebounded in the moment may seem like a small test in a season full of them. Steichen, however, saw it as a critical one, as he and his staff gathered information on the player they’ve tied their futures to.
In short, it would either give them confidence that they could proceed with their plan—or, it might lead them to slam on the brakes.
That plan was hatched soon after Steichen arrived in Indianapolis (fresh off a Super Bowl run with the Eagles), and was founded on the Colts trying to take a practical, realistic view of their circumstances. Realistically, after the franchise rolled through four starting quarterbacks in the four years following Andrew Luck’s shocking retirement, they could no longer wait to take a quarterback with a top five pick in tow. And from a practical standpoint, given the makeup of the Colts team, that quarterback was going to play as a rookie.
Which is why what Steichen saw on that mid-August afternoon in Western New York was so vital to where Indianapolis is taking things. Richardson responded to his interception by churning out a couple first downs on the Colts’ next series, then piloting a 14-play, 77-yard drive (it ended on a missed chip shot of a field goal on the possession after that).
“He finished 7-of-12, and operated [the offense], he bounced right back from it,” Steichen said. “Here we go. Next drive. Next play. Keep ripping it.”
In a way, that encapsulates what the Colts are looking for from their quarterback this year. Make plays. Make mistakes. Keep learning. Keep ripping it. And in seeing how his big, raw gunslinger reacted in Orchard Park, Steichen got his affirmation that the plan, as laid out, won’t break Richardson.
The rest of it, as we’ll explain, should be pretty fun for the rest of us to watch.
